M S 



Mix 























































































































































































































































































































































































































COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 


















THE QUEST FOR 
RELIGIOUS CERTAINTY 



THE QUEST 


for 

RELIGIOUS 

CERTAINTY 

by 

HAROLD A. BOSLEY, Ph.D. 

I 


A 


W 


Willett, Clark & Company 

CHICAGO NEW YORK 

1939 


0.OY3\J ^ 








2,Tso 

Ev 


Copyright 1939 by 
WILLETT, CLARK & COMPANY 


Manufactured in The U.S.A. by The Plimpton Press 
Norwood, Mass.-La Porte, Ind. 


OCT 16 1939 


©ClA 1 3378S 




Shailer Mathews 


“ Such men are the strong nails 
that \eep the world together” 










































CONTENTS 


Preface ix 

I. The Quest for Certainty i 

II. Present Directions of the Quest io 

III. The Meaning of Certainty 30 

IV. The Meaning of Tentativeness 49 

V. The Nature of Probability 61 

VI. The Nature of Contingency 78 

VII. Scientific Hypothesis and Religious Belief 98 

VIII. Synthesis of Tentativeness and Certainty in 

Christian Theology 118 

IX. Synthesis of Tentativeness and Certainty in 

Christian Worship 160 

X. Synthesis of Tentativeness and Certainty in 

Ethical Conduct 189 

Index 231 

































































































































































































































































































































PREFACE 


S ECULARISM, compounded as it is of the glorification 
of life, vaguely conceived, even pantheistically ideal¬ 
ized, and of reverence for science as the farthest out¬ 
reach and the most unshakable demonstration of human 
powers, has suffered irreparable damage within the last dec¬ 
ade. The stress laid in recent scientific theory on the notion 
of indeterminism at the very heart of the universe has been 
as difficult for secularism as for religion to absorb. As a 
result of economic, political and international developments 
in the past decade secularism’s confidence in man is in a much 
worse condition than religion’s belief in God has ever been. 

Secularism is on its way out. This, I think, most thought¬ 
ful observers would admit. But the admission must not be 
construed to mean that religion is on its way back. The 
emergence of religion as a dominant factor in personal life 
and in world affairs will not come about automatically. The 
factors which loosened its hold on the modern world are still 
at work: its failure to come to terms with either the conclu¬ 
sions or the method of science; its inability to find an effective 
ally in the field of contemporary philosophy; its utter neglect 
of the responsibility of clearly delineating and forcefully 
presenting ideals and values as patterns for the ordering of 
personal and social confusion; its failure to produce a phi¬ 
losophy of religion sufficiently comprehensive in scope to 
integrate in one vast, meaningful synthesis the wealth and 
richness of human life. 

The damage wrought by seven hundred years of constant 

ix 


X 


Preface 


disintegration is not going to be repaired by a book or a man 
or a generation. What I have tried to do in the following 
pages is no more than to present a humble introduction to 
the problem of certainty which thinkers in the field of re¬ 
ligion have no choice but to face. 

Chapters I and II attempt to present a picture of contem¬ 
porary confusion and indicate the various directions which 
men have taken in the past and are taking today in their 
search for certainty. Chapter III is an attempt to clarify the 
meaning and types of certainty which men seek for. I may 
say, parenthetically, that the first three chapters form simple 
reading for the specialist and make no requirements in equip¬ 
ment which the average layman cannot produce. Chapters 
IV, V and VI deal with the meaning of tentativeness and 
attempt to clarify the philosophical ground upon which it 
rests. These are dark and difficult areas. There have been 
few if any attempts to relate them to problems of religion, 
and I hold no brief for the finality of this effort. Chapter IV 
is a general introduction to the themes that are discussed 
in detail in the two ensuing chapters. Chapters V and VI 
are the most difficult sections of the book. They strive to 
get down to bedrock, and while they will be relatively easy 
reading for one who is versed in philosophy, the layman in 
philosophy will find them exacting. Yet it is my hope that 
even he, by paying careful attention both to principles and 
to illustrations, will be able to appreciate the importance and 
grasp the meaning of the themes discussed.* Chapter VII 
brings the analytical discussion of the four preceding chap¬ 
ters to bear upon the problem of the nature of religious 

* Two excellent recent works in the field of probability should be added to 
the ones referred to in Chap. V: Hans Reichenbach, Experience and Prediction 
(University of Chicago Press, 1938); Ernst Nagel, Principles of the Theory of 
Probability (University of Chicago Press, soon to be released). 


Preface 


xi 


beliefs. Chapters VIII, IX and X present the framework of 
a philosophy of religion based upon the investigations con¬ 
ducted in the preceding chapters. 

I am indebted to the following publishers for permission 
to quote from volumes which have appeared under their im¬ 
print: Allen and Unwin, London; D. Appleton-Century 
Company; Doubleday, Doran and Company; the Encyclo¬ 
pedia Britannica; Harper and Brothers; the Macmillan Com¬ 
pany; Minton, Balch and Company; G. P. Putnam’s Sons; 
Oxford University Press; Charles Scribner’s Sons; the Uni¬ 
versity of Chicago Press; Yale University Press. 

Instructors, classmates, colleagues and students of mine 
have all had a hand in making imperative and unavoidable 
the investigations and conclusions presented in these pages. 
Several of the student secretaries at the Iowa State Teachers’ 
College performed the clerical work in connection with the 
manuscript, and I am especially grateful to Miss Marjorie 
Hovey, Mr. Armin Graber, Mr. Stanley Benz and Mr. James 
Stineheart. Two of my colleagues at that institution, Miss 
Katherine Buxbaum and Miss Alison Aitchison, gave gen¬ 
erously of their time, and the reader profits by their kind 
criticism in many different ways. I cannot refrain from men¬ 
tioning my deep indebtedness to the late professor of phi¬ 
losophy of the Nebraska Wesleyan University, Edward R. 
Lewis. Through four years, he proved himself to me and 
to all students a brilliant teacher, a constructive thinker, a 
kind but incisive critic and a warmly generous friend. 

H. A. B. 

Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church 
Baltimore, Maryland 
















THE QUEST FOR 
RELIGIOUS CERTAINTY 



I 


THE QUEST FOR CERTAINTY 

C ONTEMPORARY confusion in Christianity has in¬ 
creased to the point of bedlam over this matter of 
certainty. Two truisms account for the turmoil. The 
first is that our religious tradition has organized itself, his¬ 
torically speaking, around several great certainties. And the 
second is that we have lost them; not completely, to be sure, 
but their towering truths mean more to the historian of 
Western culture than to bewildered persons facing life crises. 
In an age when persons and social orders alike face life crises 
it is inevitable that there should be yearning for that day when 
men could cry with the erstwhile blind man, “ One thing I 
know! ” Which is precisely the crux of our problem. What 
is it that we \now, religiously speaking? It is cheap wit to 
reply that the one certainty of our time is that all things are 
relative. Yet that comes close to describing the atmosphere 
in which we all live. 

The real depth of our confusion is revealed when we list 
some of the great assurances through which the Christian re¬ 
ligion has, at different times, introduced unity, direction, and 
integrity into human life. Though all the rest of the world 
should slip into the sea of relativity, these truths were re¬ 
garded as absolute and immutable. Christianity was defined 
in terms of them. 

For several centuries the Christian was one who believed 
that Jesus was Lord and who associated himself with the 


2 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

community of believers. Creed, ritual and ethical code were 
simple and austere. Later, and owing to processes which the 
historian can trace with considerable accuracy, this basic cer¬ 
tainty was expanded to include the theology and sacraments 
of the catholic church as necessary to salvation. The Protes¬ 
tant Reformation introduced a radical shift in this fundamen¬ 
tal conviction. Taking the movement by and large, its basic 
thesis could be stated thus: The Christian is one who accepts 
the Bible as the inspired and inerrant Word of God, and or¬ 
ders his life accordingly. Protestant Christianity did not 
thereby forsake the doctrines of the catholic church but pro¬ 
fessed to retain only those that were grounded in Scripture. 
A further development has taken place during the past 
seventy-five years. The “ simple-gospel ” movement has cen¬ 
tered attention upon a theme which inspired the various 
brotherhood movements among laymen during the latter 
part of the Middle Ages. Its motto has been, “ Follow Jesus.” 
When in doubt consult the Gospels. The rest of the Bible is 
important but of secondary value as compared to the records 
of the life of Jesus. 

Now so long as any one of these great conceptions could be 
accepted as certain truth, the believer achieved a perspective 
on all the rest of life. He had something to “ tie to,” a reliable 
point of departure as well as a guiding thread through the 
labyrinth of experience. 

It is a fair question whether we can get along without some 
great truths, certainly grasped, around which to organize life 
and culture. It is difficult to attach meaning and significance 
to the notion of personal or social direction and motivation 
without some secure presuppositions akin to the ancient as¬ 
surances. Psychiatrists are returning to religion because their 
patients need a sense of complete confidence in standards of 


The Quest for Certainty 3 

value calculated to restore mental health. Small wonder that 
these scientists are urging ministers of religion to desist from 
theological controversy and socio-political discussion and 
to pay strict attention to the “fundamentals of religion,” 
namely, those ideas, practices and habits which usher the wor¬ 
shiper into a world of harmony and beauty and security. 

Occasionally a social scientist shakes himself free from the 
rather morbid task of studying and describing the be¬ 
havior of human groups long enough to ask: “ What are the 
possible constructive consequences of our studies? What 
should people do ? How should they act ? ” Such queries 
almost inevitably produce talk about “ the great society ” or 
some such ideal state in which all men everywhere have the 
totality of their activities and interests organized around some 
common goal. But the ill-fated utopias of yesteryears and the 
numerous conceptions of the Kingdom of God, varying all 
the way from an otherworldly heaven to a reign of justice and 
brotherhood among men on earth, rise up to testify that our 
fathers were unable to formulate a goal which could com¬ 
mand more than partial allegiance. 

Religionists may well regard the willingness of psychiatrists 
and social scientists to turn to religion when they step into the 
realm of ends, goals, ideals or standards of value, as a token of 
rebirth of spirituality providing religion has something to 
offer on these matters . We would do well to reread in the 
Arabian Nights the tale of the rich man who invited a starv¬ 
ing beggar to his table and besought him to partake of de¬ 
lectable foods which he mentioned by name — only the 
table was bare. We who lament the low estate of religion 
should engrave on our memories how the beggar, tortured 
beyond endurance by this deception, laid low his host with 
a mighty blow. Even the most optimistic of us wonder 


4 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

whether religion can regain its feet as did the chastened host 
and produce a real meal that will satisfy real hunger. 

To adopt a more familiar figure, the Christian religion once 
more has a chance to lead a bewildered civilization out of the 
wilderness into a promised land — but, along with the rest of 
the world, it also seems to have lost its sense of direction. 
Every church and theological seminary in Christendom is 
haunted by the query, “ Can the blind lead the blind ? ” 

Most of us will agree, I suppose, that the great religious cer¬ 
tainties of yesterday are gone beyond recall. Although there 
is in them all a nub of abiding truth which may be salvaged 
after critical examination, it is unlikely that any serious at¬ 
tempt can or will be made to reinstate them in toto in the con¬ 
temporary world. To recognize this probability is neither to 
disparage the ancient formulations as “ old-fashioned ” or 
“ outmoded ” nor to laud the modern world as progressive. 
It means, simply and solely, that during the past two centuries 
altogether too many revolutions have occurred in every area 
of culture for us ever to derive emotional peace and a sense of 
security from formulations of faith with which an earlier time 
was comfortably satisfied. The basic life patterns of the cul¬ 
tural epochs in terms of which Christianity stated the funda¬ 
mentals of its faith are irrevocably broken. These life pat¬ 
terns furnished the soil within which the emotional life of 
their day was organized, and when religion sank the roots of 
its beliefs into them, certainty resulted. 

The processes of history may be cyclic, as Spengler argues, 
but one of the glorious torments of human beings is that we 
who live in a later cycle can know and partially appreciate 
what has gone before. No amount of needing, hoping or 
praying can restore the culture patterns in terms of which 
Paul stated his flaming faith. Christianity is now seen to be 


The Quest for Certainty 5 

a historical movement which has always stated its fundamen¬ 
tal faith in terms of the thought patterns of each distinctive 
age. The most disturbed and confused periods in this move¬ 
ment have been those when Christianity moved from one cul¬ 
tural sea into another — rather, perhaps, when it left one 
environment for another, as did those species of marine life 
which became land animals. In this perspective doctrines are 
seen to be mortal things growing by adaptation to environ¬ 
ment, with many unable to survive changing conditions. 

Two other reasons for the present depreciation of Christian¬ 
ity deserve a hearing. First, the ancient assurances of the 
Christian religion have fallen afoul of each other, not histori¬ 
cally alone, but within our time. Take the hoary contro¬ 
versy between faith and works as related to salvation. This, 
I take it, describes the radical difference which separates Bar- 
thians from exponents of the social gospel. Yet each of the 
parties to the controversy is willing to stake the very meaning 
and existence of God on the accuracy of his position. The 
Barthians say: If God be not above this howling chaos of 
existence, above even human concepts, then he is only a con¬ 
venient fiction inflated to cosmic proportions in order to 
sanctify some social scheme or other. The social gospel folk 
are equally decisive. They declare: If God is not actively op¬ 
erative within as well as beyond the ferment of our day, then 
he is not only unknowable but exactly useless — he doesn’t 
exist so far as human problems are concerned. 

Nor are faith and works the only Christian certainties of 
other days which are locked in this internecine struggle. 
Faith and reason continue to defy our best efforts to put them 
in double harness. The church and the Bible as sources of 
certainty do not dwell together in harmony. So it goes 
throughout the entire range of Christian truths. It is clear 


6 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

that they enjoyed their respective periods of power when they 
were related to thought and culture patterns which have now 
passed and cannot be recalled. The social consequences of the 
controversy are vivid and tragic. Our day, burdened with 
churches and theologies staking their all on some one cer¬ 
tainty or other, is feeling the full force of the fierce differences 
which have riven the Christian tradition from its very incep¬ 
tion. Small wonder that we find Catholics striving to clarify 
the meaning of “ Catholic Action ” and Protestants searching 
for a “ new social strategy.” 

Nor should we ignore the neglected state of the rites and 
customs through which central Christian convictions have 
manifested themselves in society. The practices of religion, 
such as consistent fellowship in the community of believers, 
public and private worship, interest in the sacraments and 
conviction as to their importance, are misunderstood and neg¬ 
lected to a point that calls forth acute alarm, if one may judge 
by the breath-taking proposals calculated to restore their pre¬ 
eminence. Roger Babson would promote consistent fellow¬ 
ship in the community of believers by luring tired moderns 
once a week into a service whose appeal rests on the twin vir¬ 
tues of brevity and of absence of theological and socially radi¬ 
cal preaching. So far as I know, however, no one has offered 
an equally “ convincing ” solution to the problem of the al¬ 
most complete neglect of private and family worship as well 
as of participation in the accepted sacraments of any particu¬ 
lar church. When both the intellectual substructure of a 
given belief and the practice which it validates collapse, what 
is left is a mound of ruins, of interest to one who wants imagi¬ 
natively to reconstruct the life of other days rather than to 
one who is looking for a home. 

The other reason for the vanishing of our inherited certain- 


The Quest for Certainty 7 

ties is the long overdue recognition of the facts that Christian¬ 
ity is only one among many great world religions; that not 
one of the religions that live today goes back much beyond 
1000 b.c.; that all the world religions, dead and living alike, 
have throbbed with great though different certainties. To be 
sure, the human needs which underlie these religions are 
continuous and the same, but the certainties which make a re¬ 
ligion vital have to do with solutions aimed to meet these 
needs. Hence we today must recognize that not only are our 
Christian certainties dependent for their power upon attach¬ 
ment to some vanished historical epoch but, in addition, that 
Christianity is a movement within a segment of the human 
race which is relatively small temporally, numerically and 
geographically, and that other religions have proposed other 
certainties to the rest of mankind. 

It is high time to raise the question: What price certainty ? 
Is it as important as we have pretended ? May not the search 
for it simply be an evasion of the insecurities inevitable to 
growth, an endeavor to “ freeze ” the map of life at a given 
stage wherein the basic needs of the group crying for certainty 
are at least partially met ? These questions cannot fairly be 
disposed of as a case of sour grapes. Sociologists are recogniz¬ 
ing that the desire for new experience, for adventure, is as 
basic to human life as the craving for security. Agathon de¬ 
mands of Socrates that he visualize a state comprehensive 
enough to provide for divine discontent, the restless search¬ 
ings of men; anything else will be less a state than a sty. 

Life is a hazardous process at best — one in which losses are 
as real and crushing as victories are actual and sweet; one in 
which our desires can set us on the search for solutions, yet 
can force neither their discovery nor eventuation. Some solu¬ 
tions work, others do not. Our prime concern is the satis- 


8 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

faction of felt needs, however we may define them. I take 
it that few will seriously contend that we have satisfied this 
concern today. An exaggerated concern for certainty can 
crush out or minimize the desire for new experience in a crisis 
when, in the interest of seeking more satisfactory solutions, 
we need above all else the willingness to “ break new seas.” 
John Dewey’s The Quest for Certainty furnishes indisputable 
evidence for this statement. He shows how philosophy and 
religion alike have defended by argument and enshrined in 
doctrine a conception of man and nature which was calcu¬ 
lated to give a feeling of cognitive and emotional certainty at 
the price of actual security. Men bowed before nature when 
what was needed was investigation and manipulation of natu¬ 
ral forces to the end of meeting human needs. The only sig¬ 
nificant certainty, Dewey argues, is that which derives from 
genuine security. 

I for one am willing to grant that we have overstressed the 
extent to which religion needs certainty. I do not mean to 
imply that certainty is unessential, only that it is not the whole 
of our need. Religious leaders are all too likely to cry, “ Cer¬ 
tainty, certainty, we must have certainty,” without pausing to 
ask what it is or why it is so essential. It is doubtful whether 
any other area of human thought can produce so many shin¬ 
ing examples of mesalliances between good intentions and 
bad arguments as that of religion’s quest for certainty. The 
utterly distressing feature of our contemporary endeavors is 
that they resemble a mad scramble rather than an orderly 
expedition. Definitions are vague, logic is tenuous, and the 
conclusions are acceptable only to those who are willing to 
grasp at the proverbial straws. 

Nor have the critics of Christianity been any more intelli¬ 
gent in their approach to this problem. There is, I believe, no 


The Quest for Certainty 9 

more eloquent indication of the true extent of intellectual 
panic in religion than Walter Lippmann’s treatment of cer¬ 
tainty in his A Preface to Morals. This masterpiece of clarity 
on most issues and of complete candor on all, without even 
attempting a definition of certainty begins by pointing out 
that we no longer have it and why. This, Mr. Lippmann 
argues, is where modern religion fails, because “ without com¬ 
plete certainty religion does not offer genuine consolation. 
. . . Without certainty there can be no profound sense that a 
man’s own purpose has become part of the purpose of the 
whole creation.” 1 I do not mean to suggest that the author’s 
conclusions would have been different had he first defined 
with care the crucial concept; but I must insist that as the 
matter stands, no one, not even Mr. Lippmann, knows pre¬ 
cisely what it is he is discussing. 

This chapter will have served its purpose if it calls atten¬ 
tion to (1) religion’s embarrassment when it must confess to 
a seeking world that its historic certainties have been shaken 
and cannot be re-established; (2) the fact that our frantic 
search for certainty has resulted in overemphasizing its im¬ 
portance to life as a whole; (3) the woeful lack of precision as 
to the meaning of certainty and the importance of it, what¬ 
ever it does mean. 

It is now time to leave the area of general charges and pro¬ 
duce some concrete examples of the chaotic tendencies of con¬ 
temporary Christian thought in regard to the quest for re¬ 
ligious certainty. 

1 A Preface to Morals (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1929), pp. 49 f. 


II 


PRESENT DIRECTIONS OF THE QUEST 
OT WITHOUT a struggle, at least not without a cry 



of protest, has the modern world reacted to the crum- 


JL N bling of ancient certainties, “ the dissolution of the 
ancestral pattern.” Contemporary thinkers are accepting the 
challenge and the work of reconstruction is being pushed on 
all sides. One fact is obvious: we are determined to have cer¬ 
tainty somewhere, somehow. A brief historical survey of one 
aspect of Western culture will reveal one reason behind our 
determination. 

The Western intellect has traveled for the past two millen¬ 
nia on three great truthward roads. 1 Philosophy provided 
the first highway, and for almost eight centuries the only one. 
Theology then displaced philosophy and determined the 
journey for twelve centuries. Some three hundred years ago a 
new but widening and promising way was opened up by sci¬ 
ence, and traveling it has proved to be an exacting and reward¬ 
ing adventure. 

Though these three roads lay through widely differing ter¬ 
rains they were alike in one significant respect: each guaran¬ 
teed certainty to him who would accept its discipline and keep 
his feet on the designated pathway. This point of agreement 
is, I think, the clue to our refusal to accept as final the disin¬ 
tegration of the bases of certainty. A somewhat fuller de¬ 
scription of the way each discipline achieved certainty — or, 



II 


Present Directions of the Quest 

to be more exact, its method of determining truth — will 
throw considerable light on certain tendencies in the contem¬ 
porary way of meeting the situation. 

philosophy’s road to truth 

This, said classical philosophy, is the way to reach truth, and 
gain that certainty which is essential to stability and security: 
Recognize that the truth of any proposition is determined by 
its coherence with a set of first principles. Although this 
criterion sounds harmless enough, when you begin to ex¬ 
amine its implications you run straightway into the point that 
the most worth-while thing in life is something outside of the 
experiences of living. Goodness is valuable not because it is 
encountered in experience, but because the good is the apex 
of a set of philosophical first principles which come to be that 
which confers importance upon individual acts of goodness. 
It would be a mistake to lump all the classical philosophies 
together and say that they agreed upon the fundamental na¬ 
ture of these first principles, but their most powerful forma¬ 
tive minds, Plato and Aristotle, firmly adhered to the posi¬ 
tion that the most important fact in life is not the ebb and flow 
of daily experience but a system of first principles which reach 
beneath change and seize the essence or the form of change, 
and thereby determine what things are and what things are 
not valuable. 

This, of course, was wholly an affair of the intellect. Re¬ 
ligion’s endeavor to guide man to supreme values through 
ritual and faith had little or no place in this scheme of things. 
In those far-off days men thought that their endowment with 
mind put them in possession of an instrument trusty enough 
to probe the heart of the universe. Hence the unconscionable 
emphasis upon the metaphysical nature of ideas. Reality 


12 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

came to be conceived as a series of logical propositions, a set 
of mutually consistent ideas, and the ebb and flow of daily 
experience received scarcely a civil greeting. We have ample 
reason to believe that not for a single moment did these virile 
folk think that life as they lived it from day to day was any 
such abstraction; yet they were willing to stake their all on 
the proposition that the universe in which they lived was basi¬ 
cally such an ideational arrangement. And in all fairness we 
must reckon these eight hundred years from Plato to Augus¬ 
tine among the most fruitful in the career of the Western 
mind. Brilliant insights, daring generalizations and dazzling 
speculations combine with an acute appreciation of the com¬ 
monplace to make of classical philosophy a perpetual fire for 
burning dross and impurities from the mind of man. 

theology’s quest for truth 

But philosophy for all its merits and strength finally yielded 
its position to the new religion of Christianity, which in its 
inception had no unduly exalted estimate of the importance 
of the human intellect. Paul’s letters are all too tart on this 
point. He points out that God finds it easier to work through 
the ignorance of the ignorant than through the wisdom of the 
wise and that all the long disputations over the fine points of 
philosophic systems had gained the heated debaters precisely 
nothing. Having thus branded philosophy’s road to truth as 
the way to perdition, the Christian religion presented its own 
conception of the way certainty could be attained. Hence 
theology arose to explain and defend the Christian road to 
truth. 

The fundamental principle of theology may sound sus¬ 
piciously like that of philosophy. But while there is much 
in common between the two points of view, it will be appar- 


Present Directions of the Quest 13 

ent almost at once that an unbridgeable chasm yawns be¬ 
tween them. The fundamental assumption of Christian the¬ 
ology is this: The truth of a proposition is determined by its 
coherence with revealed truth, i.e., with dogmas. I have no 
intention of getting into a wrangle over religious dogmas if 
it can be avoided. I feel with Sir Edmund Gosse in his de¬ 
lightful autobiography, Father and Son, that it is a fine thing 
to let sleeping dogmas lie. But in this connection we must 
disturb them. 

Augustine, one of the earliest theologians of first rank, was 
a skilled philosopher before he became a Christian; that is 
to say, he had acquired a profound respect for the human in¬ 
tellect as well as a deep distrust of its ability to answer all or 
any of the fundamental questions which might be asked of 
life and the universe. Some of the other great contributors 
to Christian theology in its earliest days were as deeply dyed 
in philosophy as Augustine, so we must be prepared for a 
distinction which will recognize the value and validity of the 
human intellect up to a certain point and prohibit it from 
meddling beyond that mark. This is precisely the position 
which Christian theology took from the day of Augustine 
down to that of Thomas Aquinas, who gave it its classic 
form. 

According to this division, there are two types of religion: 
rational, in which the human mind has full and complete 
freedom; revealed, before which the eyes of the mind must 
quietly close in deepest reverence. Of course the most im¬ 
portant things all came, sooner or later, to be connected with 
revealed religion in the form of dogmas. Every fundamen¬ 
tal concept in Christianity found itself in the area of re¬ 
vealed religion either as doctrine or as dogma, understand¬ 
ing by these, formulations of central truths not only sustained 


14 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

by the entire structure of theology but also vouchsafed by 
the church. The freedom extended to the human mind con¬ 
tained the proviso that it be not diverted from this roadway. 
Scholasticism resolutely insisted that human reason can reach 
a knowledge of God under its own power. Yet this affirma¬ 
tion is continually dwarfed by the towering assertion that 
the source of indubitable certainty in the area of truth is 
that of revealed dogma. 

In fact, many a luckless thinker was dubbed a heretic be¬ 
cause his intellectual processes did not lead him into the arms 
of revealed religion with as much rapidity as his brethren 
thought they should. These were the glorious days when 
men knew the answer to every important question. That 
age of supreme certainty and security lasted for almost 
twelve hundred years, down to the time of Francis Bacon 
in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Within 
this long span of time there were many thinkers like Abelard 
whose reflections led them almost to the brink of denying 
the fundamental nature of revealed religion, but without ex¬ 
ception they shrank back from the awful void into which 
they gazed. 

science’s search for truth 

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there arose 
a new movement which manifested as much vitality and 
promise as had Christianity in its earliest days. This was 
modern science. Quickly its promises and achievements in¬ 
jected a growing dissatisfaction into the erstwhile earnest 
followers of theology. Science indicated another road to 
truth: that the truth of a proposition is determined by its 
coherence with empirical data — with things, if you please. 
The world of trees, sticks, stones, people, and all observable 


Present Directions of the Quest 15 

objects was finally acknowledged to be the seedbed of truth, 
and every idea which claimed to be true had to present 
grubby, earthy evidence of its validity. No philosophical or 
theological postulate would suffice; it had to have the facts 
before it could get a hearing. It is easy to understand why 
Francis Bacon, as prophet of the new movement, should in¬ 
veigh so bitterly against classical philosophy and theology. 
It was from these barren roads that the new movement had 
rescued the human mind. For a period of more than two 
hundred years it seemed as though the human mind under 
the discipline of scientific method would rifle the universe 
of all her secrets. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 
were preeminently characterized by intensity of research in 
every conceivable direction. The human intellect applied 
itself with complete abandon to the physical, biological and 
social sciences. Philosophers and theologians still argued 
and wrangled among themselves, but the number of persons 
interested in what they had to say was rapidly decreasing. 

Sensitive spirits among the poets first realized that a subtle 
but disastrous change had come into the cultural climate. 2 
Goethe, Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold, to mention only 
three, began to call attention to the fact that while the hu¬ 
man mind was achieving one great success after another in 
the field of various researches, the human spirit was dying. 
Man’s sense of cultural continuity, of his real dependence 
upon the work and ideas of men who lived in antiquity, was 
dimmed to the point of darkness. And the poets summed 
up their charge this way: If we must give up our sense of 
humility in the presence of achievements of past generations, 
if we must sacrifice the rich world accessible only to imagina- 

2 So far as I know, A. N. Whitehead was the first thinker to give credit to the 
poets for this accomplishment. 


16 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

tion, if the outreaches of the spirit in the form of religion are 
to be rejected as superstition — if this is the price we are asked 
to pay for the admitted benefits of science, then it is too high. 

But the cry of the poets was brushed aside as so much ro¬ 
mantic nonsense, and the human mind continued its hard, 
rewarding labors along the highway of science. For when 
science laid down its fundamental postulate decreeing that 
truth is determined by coherence with things, the world of 
spiritual values, upon which religion and poetry were based, 
was necessarily regarded as an illusion. It was during this 
stressful period that thinkers began to distinguish between 
facts and values, assigning science to the area of facts and 
religion to the area of values. This distinction aimed to res¬ 
cue the prerogatives of art and religion from attrition caused 
by science. But the hoped-for relief did not come from this 
source. 

This third journey was the shortest one of all, lasting from 
the days of Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century to the 
time of Boutroux, Peirce and Whitehead, who began to make 
their famous criticisms of scientific theory in the latter part 
of the nineteenth century. Science could neither laugh off 
nor set aside as romantic nonsense their question: What are 
these “ things ” about which you speak when you say that 
truth is determined by coherence with “ things ” or empiri¬ 
cal data of “ things ” ? So long as scientific theory could fall 
back upon the notion that the atom possessed a certain in¬ 
trinsic being as the element to which all the rest of physical 
matter could be reduced (Newton held this), the answer was 
fairly clear. But when scientific research began to break 
the atom up into more and more infinitesimal units which 
derive their significance more from action than from loca¬ 
tion, it seemed as though the universe itself had taken sides 


Present Directions of the Quest 17 

against the fundamental postulate of science. To this very 
day and hour no one is quite sure how to answer the ques¬ 
tions: What is “matter”? What are “things” anyway? 
What possible meaning inheres in the formula that truth is 
discovered through consistency with “ things ” ? 

Suffice it to say that the layman’s undivided regard for 
science was interrupted by several appalling consequences 
of the practical application of science. Outstanding among 
these was the World War. Men began to call science a 
“ false Messiah.” 8 The whole movement of literary human¬ 
ism amounts to nothing less than a repudiation of the fun¬ 
damental postulate with which science had begun in the six¬ 
teenth and seventeenth centuries. 

These considerations help us to account for the fact that 
we no longer tread with confidence the roadway of science. 
We are, to be sure, free to walk in almost any direction, but 
simply to strike out for the sake of going is gloomy busi¬ 
ness, as Krutch demonstrates. 4 

Since man has become accustomed to the comfortable 
claim of possessing some form of certainty, it is not sur¬ 
prising to find the thinkers of our day anxiously endeavor¬ 
ing to attain it in one way or another. This endeavor is not 
peculiar to religion, but is characteristic as well of philoso¬ 
phy, 5 art 6 and scientific theory. 7 However, our attention 

3 C. E. Ayres, Science, the False Messiah (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 
1927). 

4 Joseph W. Krutch, The Modern Temper (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 

I93 °h 

5 John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 
1920); H. A. Overstreet, We Move in New Directions (New York: W. W. Norton 
Co., 1933). 

6 Krutch, Experience and Art (New York: R. R. Smith, 1932); Dewey, Art as 
Experience (New York: Minton, Balch & Co., 1935). 

7 P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics (New York: The Macmillan 
Co., 1927). 


18 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

will be confined to the area of religion. 8 Our immediate 
task, then, is briefly to indicate four specific insights and two 
systems which are receiving considerable attention because 
they promise new pathways to certainty. 

i. “High Religion” This, especially as expounded by 
Walter Lippmann, is probably the most popular movement 
among sober sophisticates. It begins by pointing out, as we 
saw in earlier pages, that traditional religion is decadent be¬ 
cause its great certainties are no longer compelling. The 
reason for this falling off was the discovery that these cer¬ 
tainties were in large measure projected fulfillments of un¬ 
criticized desires. We wanted security here and hereafter; 
hence we demanded assurances regarding God and immor¬ 
tality, among other things, which would vouchsafe our fond 
but extravagant desires. The way out is to scale our desires 
down to reality. We must learn to want only what we can 
have. This requires an enormous amount of courage and 
the highest type of spiritual discipline. Hence Walter Lipp¬ 
mann regards this position as one of “ high religion.” Sci¬ 
ence and tradition can help us determine what the universe 
will permit; intelligence and fortitude will aid us in seek¬ 
ing these possibilities. Certainty for “ high religion ” then 
amounts to accepting the fact that one will want only what 
is within the area of possible achievement. 

The complicated catch in this endeavor is, first, how to 
know what things are possible, and, second, how to keep our 
desires confined thereto. The frontiers of possibility move 
back with amazing rapidity and often without forewarning. 
The devotee of “ high religion ” can, to be sure, strike his 

8 E. E. Aubrey, Present Theological Tendencies (New York: Harper & Bros., 
1936). This I regard as the clearest exposition of what is going on in contem¬ 
porary Christian thought. 


Present Directions of the Quest 19 

tents and follow after. If he recognizes the likelihood of 
new possibilities, then a place should be made for it as an 
integral aspect of his religion. But even “ high religion ” is 
not immune to the perpetual danger which dogs those who 
follow frontiers — mirages, the projection of desired and 
needed ends as truths certain enough to live by and, if nec¬ 
essary, to die for. 

2. Revelation . After a two hundred year rest in the se¬ 
questered home of theology the concept of revelation is once 
more active in the marts of everyday thought. One of the 
most challenging theological movements of our day regards 
it as the crucial concept in religious reconstruction. I refer, 
of course, to the dialectical theology of Germany, which has 
begun to filter into England and America. For this move¬ 
ment, Christian Scriptures, theology and institutions are 
quite unintelligible apart from the controlling and luminous 
influence of revelation. Karl Barth asserts that Christians 
must accept the Bible as the Word of God and Jesus as the 
Son of God whose divine love condemns us as sinners yet 
promises salvation through faith. Carefully note: these are 
not rational assurances. They so bristle with contradictions 
that reason is unable to validate them, much less reach them. 
They come to us clothed with authority; they are messages 
and meanings sent of God. 

We need not enter further into this provocative theology. 
Our present concern is to understand, if possible, precisely 
what is meant by revelation. Despite the warnings of Barth 
and his followers that reason must keep hands off we are en¬ 
titled to observe that the concept is a part of our language 
and therefore has some connotations that ought to be intel¬ 
ligible to everyone. Several such are evident. 

In the first place, some light is thrown upon the concept 


20 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

when we realize that revelation takes precedence over all 
that men can do, think and feel. Not only takes precedence, 
but actually dismisses human experience as devoid of posi¬ 
tive value. Professor Wilhelm Pauck, a friendly critic of 
Barthianism, makes an illuminating comment on the back¬ 
ground of this theological movement: “It is the old, old 
question of certainty which is in the background of the 
Barthian theology. That man cannot depend upon himself, 
upon his human experiences, when this need is aroused — 
this is the discovery in which Barth rejoiced when he wrote 
his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.” 9 

Emil Brunner is particularly outspoken in his laudation 
of revelation. For him it is the avenue of reliable knowl¬ 
edge. When someone demands that revelation give evidence 
of its validity, Brunner replies that it cannot be done pre¬ 
cisely because the truths of revelation cannot be stated in 
terms calculated to coerce reason. 10 One must have faith 
in revelation before its deliverances are compelling. When 
one has such faith, his questions cease. For example: “ The 
real Christ is not visible to the historian’s eye. To see the 
revelation of God in Christ is a gracious privilege of faith, 
of the believer and not of the historian; or metaphysically 
speaking, the organ with which Christ is apprehended is not 
the historian’s scientific eye but the spiritual eye of the be¬ 
liever.” 11 

Reason has a negative value; its rigorous exercise rewards 
man just as the efforts of a fly to get off flypaper serve the fly 
— he gets stuck all the tighter. Reason enables man to see 

9 Wilhelm Pauck, Karl Barth (New York: Harper & Bros., 1931), pp. 66 f. 

10 Emil Brunner, The Theology of Crisis (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 
1929), pp. 37 fT. 

11 Ibid., p. 42; cf. also Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man 
(Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1928), p. 277. 


21 


Present Directions of the Quest 

the profound contradictions which obtain between time and 
eternity, life and death, God and man. It likewise confesses 
its inability to resolve these contradictions, and with this con¬ 
fession man is stripped of his last pretension and stands 
naked before God awaiting his message. 

Another important meaning of revelation is that it is a 
possible clue to the qualitative difference between God and 
man. Revelation always flows from God to man. By no 
amount of effort can man command a revelation. He can 
prepare himself to receive it, but that done he must wait. 
Revelation, then, is charged with a divine current with which 
it illuminates human life. 12 It proclaims unity and peace to 
man amid disunity and turmoil. God is seen as all-sufficient 
when man is deserted by every shred of self-sufficiency. 

What criticism can be made of this road to truth? I do 
not see how we can avoid asserting that the logic by which 
certainty derives from revelation is unbreakable precisely 
because it ultimately forms a vicious circle. If one ques¬ 
tions the validity of the claims made for revelation, he gets 
this answer: “As long as you remain an outsider, i.e., one 
who doubts revelation, you cannot verify its claims to abso¬ 
lute knowledge. To do this you must accept revelation, i.e., 
you must become an insider. You know you are an insider 
when you cease to doubt revelation.” We can put the case 
for revelation in a single sentence: The only way you can 
resolve your doubts as to revelation is wholly to believe in 
it; when you wholly believe in it you will know that it is 
true. 13 

12 Dr. E. G. Homrighausen warned me, in our first talk on these subjects, 
always to remember that revelation, for Barth, is dynamic, never static. 

13 H. H. Farmer, The World and God (New York: Harper & Bros., 1935). 
Chap. 5 presents a conception of revelation vastly different from that of dialectical 
theology. 


22 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

3. The Supernatural. When science replaced theology as 
guide of the Western mind, one of the first traditional con¬ 
cepts to be discredited was that of the supernatural. Science 
knows no such area of reality — at least scientific method 
makes no provision for the perception of it. When science 
exercised unchallenged dominion, the whole notion of the 
supernatural was anathema to the educated mind. But sci¬ 
ence, as we have seen, is in a somewhat humbler mood these 
days. And one of the highways to certainty that is being 
indicated with increasing frequency is a form of supernatu¬ 
ralism. It is not simply a reaffirmation of the ancient form. 
Rather it aims to preserve the inherited values of the Chris¬ 
tian tradition by a careful critique of science. This is com¬ 
monly referred to as the “ new supernaturalism.” 14 Under 
the astute leadership of John Oman, 15 F. R. Barry 16 and 
H. H. Farmer, 17 it is a well knit theological system com¬ 
prised of coherent metaphysical principles, a standard of 
ethical values, and doctrinal affirmations. 

This movement indicts science on the grounds of method 
and conclusions alike. The method of science proceeds by 
analysis rather than by synthesis, by centering attention on 
the part rather than on the whole, by insisting that whatever 
is true must be mensurable. Its conclusions point to the ex¬ 
istence of a world whose mass motion is explicable in terms 
of irrefragable law; a world of necessity rather than of free¬ 
dom, one in which notions of value, ideal and “ oughtness ” 
have no relevance to conduct. This is the “ natural ” world 
disclosed by science. 

But it is far from the whole story, argue these writers. 

14 Aubrey, op. cit., chap. 5. 

15 Natural and Supernatural (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1931). 

16 Christianity and the Modern World (New York: Harper & Bros., 1932). 

17 Op. cit. 


23 


Present Directions of the Quest 

And they outline a theory of knowledge designed to place 
scientific procedure in its proper setting. John Oman, for 
example, distinguishes four types of knowing, the first two 
of which produce evidences of the supernatural while the 
last two (scientific knowing) yield the natural. 18 Perhaps 
a brief description of this epistemological scheme will make 
a little plainer why it is enjoying much favor now. 

The first type of knowing — awareness — is the most in¬ 
clusive. It is characterized by keen activity of all our senses. 
The whole of the environment is accepted. It is a perception 
of the wholeness of things. It does not know a particular 
object as object, but only as an object-in-its-context. The 
second type of knowing — apprehension — results when 
within the total field of awareness we single out some one 
thing while the rest of the field fades into a background, 
much as an orchestra forms a background for the soloist. 

Comprehension is the third type of knowing and with it 
we enter into the domain controlled by science. It seeks 
further to isolate the individual item; and in order that we 
may interrogate it regarding its own private structure we 
allow the remainder of the original inclusive field of atten¬ 
tion quietly and completely to disappear. At this juncture, 
explanation, the last type of knowing, takes full charge of 
the endeavor to discover the nature and purpose of the par¬ 
ticular object. 

Since the first two are the types of knowing which validate 
the existence and nature of what Oman calls “ a peculiar 
kind of reality,” we must try a little harder to get a precise 
picture of what goes on in them, especially in the first one. 

A cross section of the state of awareness exhibits three dif- 

18 Op. cit., pp. 120 ff. H. H. Farmer, op. cit., chap. 2, uses the phrase “ syn¬ 
thesizing intuition ” to denote what Oman means by awareness and apprehension. 


24 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

ferent kinds of qualities or characteristics, (i) There is a 
great variety and richness of sensation — sensory images of 
colors, odors, sounds, etc. None are detained and asked for 
passports, nor are they slighted in any way; they are simply 
and fairly received and no question arises as to possible illu¬ 
sions. This is possible because the perceiver is simply a sen¬ 
sitive plate on which his total environment is registering it¬ 
self. (2) But we find more than sensory images in this state 
of awareness. Sensations are not helter-skelter but are in 
order and engender in the perceiving mind the consciousness 
of an objective unity of the whole. Objects are not isolated 
but are perceived in relations with other objects. But this 
perception of context is not a particular sensory image. In 
it we have the ingression of another order of datum, the im¬ 
port of which will be assessed in a moment. (3) From this 
symphony of the whole arises the music of meaning, not of 
parts, but of the totality. This is best described as the “ un¬ 
differentiated holy,” the reverence for the integrity of the 
environment. Hence we find poets, when they open their 
spirits to the rays of their total world, brooding over the 
sense of time, space and infinity. Surely, argues Oman, these 
products of the state of awareness are as real as the sensory 
perceptions but are not sensory data themselves. It may be 
said of them as of the Kantian categories, they arise with 
sensory data but are clearly different in kind or quality from 
them. 

Thus we see that the last two characteristics inherent in the 
state of awareness constitute the evidence for the existence 
of a supernatural order of reality not independent of sensa¬ 
tions but qualitatively different from them. Just as a friend 
is more than any list, however complete, of the sensory im¬ 
pressions which he produces, and as a poem is more than an 


Present Directions of the Quest 25 

array of metrical lines, so the deliverances of awareness are 
more than any list of sensory data. 

This theory of knowledge, by virtue of which the relativi¬ 
ties and necessities of nature are placed in the wider context 
of absolute and self-explanatory supernature, has been put 
to a wide and significant use by two other writers mentioned 
earlier. F. R. Barry 19 points out that the standard of ethical 
values is in the supernatural with its sense of absolute values 
or “ valuation as sacred,” to use Oman’s phrase. Hence our 
ethical systems and moral codes are fingers pointing toward 
this area of ideal values and derive their importance there¬ 
from. H. H. Farmer, 20 a pupil of Oman, writes an incisive 
book to show how the fundamental faith of the Christian re¬ 
ligion in the reality of a warmly personal God is simply a 
further yet wholly consistent application of the theory of 
knowledge which we have just outlined. 

If we can accept as valid this road to truth, then our quest 
for religious certainty is at an end. The state of awareness, 
this “ synthesizing intuition ” of environment, provides all 
that men have ever looked for under the name of religion. 
But this endeavor is only one of several types of intuitionism, 
and before we accept it we must reflect on the severe critique 
which can be made of the intuitional approach to reality. 
Since intuitionism is discussed in more detail in the next 
chapter, I shall do no more now than allude to it. 

4. Value . During the past century increasing attention 
has been given to the area of values. Philosophy and the¬ 
ology have broken over boundaries which formerly kept 
them sharply separated and are now sharing an investigation 
in this field. Some of our most stimulating minds feel that 
patient research will discover the bases of certainty here if 

19 Op. cit. 20 Op. cit. 


26 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

anywhere. Thinkers as widely divergent on most matters 
as John Dewey, A. N. Whitehead, S. Alexander and Nicolai 
Hartmann agree that the acid test of their speculative enter¬ 
prises is the question, What are the implications for human 
values ? 

Philosophers are analyzing the nature of meaning; psy¬ 
chologists are endeavoring to identify the experience of value 
in order to describe its nature; sociologists are investigating 
the nature of social experience and its value relationships; 
theologians are busy relating the results of these efforts to 
concrete problems of human needs. Astute critics like Wal¬ 
ter Lippmann sense the fact that more than we like to ad¬ 
mit in a time of confusion our ethical codes must become 
weaker instead of stronger until we discover a way of think¬ 
ing about values compelling enough to ‘control conduct. 
When we say that no one theory of value dominates the field 
of thought today, it is not alone to call attention to one of 
the most prolific sources of modern confusion, but also to 
indicate the vigor and intensity of the activity that charac¬ 
terizes the entire area. 

The precise nature of certainty derived from the area of 
value depends, of course, upon the particular theory of value 
which one uses as a frame of reference. But for all theories 
of value this much is true: certainty is vouchsafed him who 
believes both in the reality of specific values and in the pos¬ 
sibility of a fuller relationship with them. Beyond this I 
shall not now attempt to go, since in a later chapter 21 1 shall 
indicate what impresses me as the most significant theory of 
value under consideration today. 

Although modernism is largely a Protestant phenomenon, 
and Neo-Thomism a Roman Catholic movement, they agree 

21 Chap. VIII. 


Present Directions of the Quest 27 

in reassigning certainty to Christian theology. A brief sur¬ 
vey of the purpose and method of each will complete the 
present orientation of our quest. 

Modernism . The purpose of modernism is “ to lay hold 
on the vital spiritual insights of our Christian tradition and 
to make them intelligible to the modern mind.” 22 The large 
assumption is that when these insights are intelligible they 
will once more vitalize society. Modernism is committed to 
the conviction that certainty (certain truths) sufficient for 
the direction of personal and social life is to be found in 
traditional Christian thought and practices, providing their 
basic meaning is expressed in contemporary terms and 
thereby related to existing problems. And it has, over the 
period of almost two hundred years, been fashioning a 
method for recapturing and once more putting into active 
service the truths embedded in doctrines fitted to other days. 

The first half of the method is to see in any particular 
doctrine the human experiences, the social milieu, the emo¬ 
tional guarantees to person and group alike. Only in this 
way is it possible even approximately to discover why the 
formulation was meaningful. Without exception the “es¬ 
sence ” of the insight clothes itself in analogies drawn from 
the period. Shailer Mathews has devoted an entire book 23 
to the discussion of the various analogies used to express to 
succeeding generations the significance of Jesus’ death. The 
patterns or analogies are more than figures of speech; they 
are, in addition, a reliable clue to the intensity with which 
the basic idea is held. 

The second step in the method of this movement is to 

22 Aubrey, op. cit., p. 24. 

23 The Atonement and the Social Process (New York: The Macmillan Co., 
1930). 


28 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

discover cultural tensions in our day similar to those in 
which the doctrines were vital. If such exist, then an anal¬ 
ogy or symbol adequate to our mode of living must be 
found. For example, “ sin ” possessed a precise meaning 
when God was likened to a monarch and man to his subject. 
In this analogy sin was disobedience. If dictatorships con¬ 
tinue to thrive, we may expect an increasing number of per¬ 
sons to understand this conception of sin. But, by and large, 
this particular pattern has lost its communicative value and 
we are looking for new analogies by which to explain what, 
in experience, corresponds to the concept. We squirm un¬ 
easily when someone speaks of a person as sinful but under¬ 
stand very clearly if the concept used is not sin but maladjust¬ 
ment. The latter concept carries a contemporary suggestion 
that touches off the meanings implicit in the basic insight. 

For modernism, then, certainty continues to reside in 
Christian theology when this is seen to be the precipitate of 
group endeavor to release tensions and convey meanings via 
an analogy drawn from culture patterns. 24 Modernism like¬ 
wise has confidence in its instrument, the historical method. 
Problems and doubts arise when even this method is unable 
to put a steady finger on the “ essence ” of theology. Yet the 
predication of certainty to theology is unwavering. 

Neo-Thomism. Broadly speaking, the twin masters of 
Neo-Thomism are Aristotle and Aquinas. Its purpose is to 
recapture for society the basic unity which these great think¬ 
ers perceived to be immanent in the universe. Christian 
theology insistently affirms that God is the cosmic ground 
of unity. Neo-Thomism reasons that implicit in all em- 

24 The various books of Sydney Cave exemplify the modernist approach: The 
Doctrine of the Person of Christ (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925); The 
Doctrines of the Christian Faith (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1931); The Doc¬ 
trine of the Work, of Christ (Nashville, Tenn.: Cokesbury Press, 1937). 


Present Directions of the Quest 29 

pirical objects (a tree, for example) there is a spiritual prin¬ 
ciple, an entity, a form, to use Aristotle’s expression. All 
such spiritual essences proceed from God, the Uncaused 
Cause. “Man, like every object in the world, has his na¬ 
ture, his essential quality, and also his activities. And man’s 
essence, his soul, gives the body the perfection, the actual 
existence, its life.” 25 

Theology has apprehended this basic truth in all areas or 
orders of creation. Therefore Neo-Thomism insists that the 
repository of indubitable truths, of certainty, is in Catholic 
theology. The method of perceiving it continues to be that 
of traditional theology, reason and faith, the former gov¬ 
erned by valid inference, the latter by obedience to the au¬ 
thority of the church. 

No more pressing task confronts Christian leaders than 
that of bringing some kind of genuine order out of this 
welter of conflicting attempts to achieve certainty. Our con¬ 
fusion will mount, not subside, until and unless we get a 
firm grasp on the fundamental truths by which we would 
reorder modern society. And the first step in this direction 
is to inquire with utmost care and fairness into the meaning 
of certainty, the various types of certainty, and the conditions 
and the extent to which it is possible for us to achieve cer¬ 
tainty. The endeavor to do this will occupy the rest of these 
pages. 


25 Aubrey, op. cit., pp. 137 f. 


Ill 


THE MEANING OF CERTAINTY 

W E HAVE much to learn from the strategy with 
which pivotal philosophers have sought the 
meaning of certainty. Plato spends the greater 
part of the Republic showing that philosophers should di¬ 
rect the destinies of the ideal state. And this because the 
prime function of philosophy is to acquaint man with the 
idea of the good. Plato sums up the pregnant parable of 
the cave in these words: “ My opinion is that in the world of 
knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen 
only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be 
the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent 
of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and 
the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; 
and that this is the power upon which he who would act 
rationally either in public or private life must have his eye 
fixed.” 

It is easy to see why Plato feels that men who have laid 
hold of this idea of the good should direct the state. They 
are conscious of a relationship between man and his world 
which is reliable because it brings within the ken of man 
the most inclusive, enduring reality. Nor is this a matter of 
inarticulate intuitionism. Rather the good immediately re¬ 
lates itself to mundane affairs in the form of ethical concepts 
and beliefs. This is Plato’s path to certainty. 

Descartes seeks for certainty by doubting everything that 
can be doubted. When the skeptical scouring is completed 
30 


The Meaning of Certainty 


3i 

he finds that he still possesses some “clear and distinct 
ideas.” This is what he wants and all that he needs because, 
for him, these ideas represent an indisputably reliable rela¬ 
tionship between himself and his world. His doubt of him¬ 
self leads to a ringing affirmation not only of his own real¬ 
ity but also of the existence of God. The latter belief gains 
strength when Descartes finds that among his few “ clear 
and distinct” ideas there is one about a “perfect being.” 
The very fact that he possesses the idea, he concludes, re¬ 
inforces the belief in the existence and the perfection of God. 
Given the twin concepts of self and God and a confidence in 
their reality, Descartes is able to deal via mathematica with 
the remainder of his problems. 

Descartes and Plato share the conviction that it is possible 
for one “ with effort ” to achieve an indubitable experience 
of that which is most deeply true of the universe. They 
likewise agree that this experience can be profitably articu¬ 
lated in beliefs. Neither holds that such beliefs are photo¬ 
graphic reproductions of reality, but rather that they provide 
a reliable sketch of it at those points where human life 
touches it . 

John Dewey believes that the various quests for certainty 
can be best understood as endeavors to solve a single problem: 
“ Man has beliefs which scientific inquiry vouchsafes, beliefs 
about the actual structure and processes of things, and he also 
has beliefs about the values which should regulate his con¬ 
duct. The question of how these two ways of believing may 
most effectively and fruitfully interact with one another is 
the most general and significant of all the problems which 
life presents to us.” 1 

Although The Quest for Certainty concludes that certainty 

1 The Quest for Certainty (New York: Minton, Balch & Co., 1929), pp. 18-19. 


32 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

is unattainable, its author, in an earlier work, gives the rea¬ 
son why the search for it must and will continue: “Two 
things are equally inept. One is to forget that human na¬ 
ture must have something upon which to rest; the other is 
to fancy that one’s own preferred foundation-stones are the 
only things that will bring stability and security to others.” 2 

One thing is fairly clear in the basic problem as Dewey 
states it: Human nature cannot come to rest in “ something ” 
unless that “ something ” is regarded as bringing felt values 
into relationship with the processes of the universe as revealed 
by scientific inquiry. The several roads to certainty to be 
considered in the following pages all presuppose the reality 
of the value experience — the consciousness of value — and 
are advanced as ways of discovering the fuller nature of 
value in order to make possible more precise judgments re¬ 
garding it. Our immediate problem is to secure a conception 
of certainty that can lend genuine assistance in the search 
for a way to bridge this chasm between felt values and the 
nature of reality, between the consciousness of value and 
reliable judgments of value. I am convinced that the defini¬ 
tion we need in order to clarify our thinking at the begin¬ 
ning of the quest is implicit in the combined efforts of Plato, 
Descartes and Dewey, and can be formulated this way: Cer¬ 
tainty is man’s consciousness of a reliable relationship, stated 
in terms of belief, between himself and his world. 

1 wish first to point out that the definition includes within 
itself the various types of certainty that have been and are 
being sought. It is possible to place the emphases at various 
places in the formulation, and thinkers have done and are 
continuing to do this very thing. Some stress mans con¬ 
sciousness of his relationship to the world and are fortunate 

2 Characters and Events (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1929), II, 453-54. 


The Meaning of Certainty 


33 

if they escape the nadir of subjectivism — solipsism. Others 
stress the relationship and search for ways of increasing its 
reliability. Still others swing to the extreme of objectiv¬ 
ity and stress the world and its characteristics, purporting 
thereby to describe the nature of things. It is a difference of 
emphasis, and careful thinking must always reach out to the 
other factors regardless of the one which it uses as a point of 
departure. Whatever merit the definition may have derives 
from its endeavor to call attention to all three emphases, 
not as separate entities but as aspects of an organic whole. 

Although I am insisting that the certainty which we seek 
is broader than any one type, it will none the less be instruc¬ 
tive to survey the various kinds of certainty that have been 
sought. They can be classified in two pairs: (i) psychologi¬ 
cal and logical, (2) certainty of conclusion and certainty of 
method. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND LOGICAL CERTAINTY 

Morris Cohen tirelessly insists that certainty is either psy¬ 
chological or logical . 3 Psychological certainty stresses man’s 
consciousness of something as being true. It is not a state of 
dispassionate awareness. It is what Charles Dinsmore calls 
“ assured conviction .” 4 It is not simple cognition; rather it 
is an idea which is the channel through which emotional se¬ 
curity and peace flow. Certainty so conceived holds that a 
belief is validated by the intensity of one’s feeling that it is 
true. On this basis Columbus, prior to his voyages to the 
Americas, was right when he felt that the earth was round 
because he was passionately convinced that it was round. 
But by the same token our Zionist friend, Voliva, is right 

3 Reason and Nature (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1931), pp. 83 ff. 

4 Religious Certitude in an Age of Science (Chapel Hill, N. C.: University of 
North Carolina Press, 1924), p. 74. 


34 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

when he asserts that the earth is flat because he is so firmly 
convinced that it is flat that he is willing to pay money to 
anyone who can convince him otherwise. 

Obviously there is no possible disproof of a belief so held. 
Each man’s belief stands uncontradicted and uncontradicta- 
ble in his sight. The method by which he holds it is not 
amenable either to proof or to disproof due to external 
changes. Waxing and waning of emotional intensity alone 
determine the fluctuations in the status of the belief. Knowl¬ 
edge comes to stand for the sum total of what men passion¬ 
ately believe to be true. Beyond this we cannot go nor 
should we have any desire to go. There is no check on 
knowledge, no way to determine what is more and what less 
certain. The concept “ verification ” would drop out of our 
vocabulary were we committed to this position. 

It is perhaps proper that Hamlet had recourse to this con¬ 
cept of truth when he staged a mild insanity to deceive false 
friends, and argued, “ For there’s nothing good or bad but 
thinking makes it so.” One of the world’s greatest realists 
asked the question which is deadly to psychological cer¬ 
tainty: “ Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit 
to his stature ? ” None the less, it has been comfortably 
preached to us that the very intensity of our desire for some¬ 
thing is a valid indication of its possibility, not to say prob¬ 
ability. And heaven has done yeoman service at the critical 
juncture of actualization — for if one cannot get his heart’s 
fondest desire here, he will enjoy it hereafter. 

In opposition to this type of thought logical certainty 
measures the truth of a proposition by examining its relation¬ 
ship to an accepted body of truth . 5 A true proposition is one 


5 I am postponing to a later chapter consideration of the very important dis¬ 
tinction between necessary and contingent propositions, certain and probable truths. 


The Meaning of Certainty 35 

which is related to such a body by the laws of strict infer¬ 
ence. This mode of thought has a noble history. Philoso¬ 
phy, theology and science have used it. Although, as we 
saw in an earlier chapter, they proceed by different criteria 
of truth, they are at one in their aim to construct an impres¬ 
sive system of accepted principles, doctrines or laws by which 
to determine the validity of hypothetical or theoretical propo¬ 
sitions. Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies constituted 
systems in which art, ethics and politics were mutually sus¬ 
taining parts of an organic whole. Consequently a new 
theory in any of these fields was examined not alone in terms 
of the particular one it aimed to displace but also as to re¬ 
percussions in the system as a whole. The august theologies 
of Origen and Aquinas, as well as Newtonian physics, are 
similar in logical structure and practical intent to such philo¬ 
sophical systems. 

This is an almost inevitable development. No proposition 
stands alone. Its truth value grows in proportion to its abil¬ 
ity to gather around itself other and relevant propositions. 
Logical certainty derives from the allocation of a principle, 
belief or theory in a system of principles, beliefs or theories 
which is not questioned and which sustains mutually im¬ 
plicative relations with the newcomer. Mathematical or de¬ 
ductive reasoning is the usual prototype for such system 
building, because in it we have our clearest picture of logi¬ 
cal validity. In it the entire movement of thought is from 
axioms, self-evident truths, and postulates to conclusions 
which can be demonstrated to be valid inferences. 

But it is now commonplace that neither philosophy, the¬ 
ology nor science has been able fully to introduce mathe¬ 
matical reasoning into its various problems. And this for 
the simple reason that they have not been able to construct 


36 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

fixed and permanently acceptable bodies of truths against 
which to measure the validity of new theories. Such ac¬ 
cumulations of truths are always answerable to experience 
and therefore are liable to modification if not to dismantling. 
When a new idea is declared false because it does not fit into 
established patterns it need not accept this judgment as final. 
But in order to get a hearing it must gather around itself a 
growing body of truths which as a system is able to demon¬ 
strate its superiority to the system which rejected it. 

For example, the revolutionary conception of Copernicus, 
namely, that we live in a heliocentric universe, was first ad¬ 
vanced by Aristarchus of Samos, who lived about 270 b.c. 
Why was it rejected then, yet accepted almost two thousand 
years later ? It was rejected because it ran counter to all the 
accepted truths of that day. Aristarchus barely escaped in¬ 
dictment for impiety. Hipparchus and Ptolemy frowned 
upon the theory and advanced the geocentric view. Aris¬ 
tarchus’ theory stood almost alone. It was based upon some 
acute observations, but they were few in number and frag¬ 
mentary in character. Almost the same hypothesis was ad¬ 
vanced by Copernicus with the significant difference that 
he had bolstered it by some ancillary theories as to the char¬ 
acter of the orbits of heavenly bodies and these in turn rested 
upon observations and careful calculations. Tycho Brahe 
and Kepler took up Copernicus’ work which ran counter to 
the prevailing Ptolemaic system and further entrenched it 
by more accurate observations and calculations. The upshot 
of their collective work was a formidable system which was 
able to make good its challenge to a system that had been 
accepted as the body of truth for over two thousand years. 

Thus it is for a new insight in any area. It gets a hearing 
only when it is found to be relevant to the accepted body of 


The Meaning of Certainty 


37 

truth or, failing that, when it organizes around itself an¬ 
other system. Whereas psychological certainty locates truth 
in the emotional intensity which an insight or belief evokes, 
logical certainty pronounces it true when it has been inte¬ 
grated in an accepted body of truth. 

CERTAINTY OF CONCLUSION AND CERTAINTY 
OF METHOD 

Certainty of conclusion and certainty of method are more 
clearly separated from each other than they are from the two 
types discussed in the preceding pages. The justification for 
special attention is that each one of the four types denotes 
some particular aspect of the problem. 

The distinguishing characteristic of certainty of conclu¬ 
sion is that it simply affirms some particular relationship 
between man and his world. 6 It does not argue the advisa¬ 
bility of the choice; it demands its adoption. The method 
by which the conclusion is reached receives scant attention 
and questions regarding it are not welcomed, but the in¬ 
dubitable truth of the conclusion is affirmed and loyalty to 
it required. 

One quickly perceives that this type of certainty depends 
for its significance upon complete acceptance of authority 
of some kind or other. The morality of primitive and rela¬ 
tively isolated groups is of this nature. For a thousand years 
or more the Roman Catholic Church swayed Europe because 
Europe had confidence in the conclusions which the church 
pressed upon it. In so far as there is a cult of science among 
us, composed of those who blindly worship the scientist and 
his work, the emphasis falls upon certainty of conclusion. 

6 W. A. Brown, Pathways to Certainty (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 
1930), P* 23: “Certainty is certainty of something — a truth to be believed or a 
reality to be experienced.” 


38 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

While we are impressed by the grandeur of the conclusions 
based upon authority, two closely related questions arise and 
demand an answer. One wants to know whether we really 
know enough about the world to speak with such consum¬ 
ing certainty about its fundamental characteristics. The 
margin of mystery which clusters around the grandiose asser¬ 
tion of many philosophers, theologians and scientists is too 
narrow to be convincing. However, there is always a re¬ 
mote possibility that the assertions are really true, although 
the history of thought does not encourage that belief. Briefly, 
may we not ask the producer of conclusions to withhold his 
peremptory demand for our acceptance until he has stated 
and successfully defended his theory of knowledge ? Who¬ 
ever urges acceptance of conclusions “ because they’re so ” 
almost certainly is trying to evade the troublesome problems 
of knowledge which continue to perplex modern philoso¬ 
phy. This fact definitely pushes the entire problem out of 
the area of conclusions and into that of method. Thereafter 
the quest becomes a search for that method of thought which 
is best fitted to discover and sustain a reliable relationship 
between man and his world. 

When two conclusions are in conflict their exponents must 
endeavor to demonstrate their validity by explaining the 
process by which they have been reached. This demands 
that the evidence and the logic which underlie the conclu¬ 
sions be brought to light. It is perhaps significant in this 
connection that discoveries in science are never boldly an¬ 
nounced as conclusions but are always presented together 
with an exact description of the procedure by which they 
were made. Specialists in the field concerned labor carefully 
over every detail in the method in order to determine the 
validity of the conclusion. Something akin to this occurs 


The Meaning of Certainty 39 

whenever conflict in conclusions is encountered. Therefore 
we must now focus attention upon the various methods by 
which men have tried to win certainty. 

The one which most readily comes to mind is acceptance 
of authority, whether it be that of a church, a book, a man, 
a philosophic system or a scientific world view. This is a 
very popular way of gaining certainty, and so long as there 
is neither conflict with other conclusions nor penetrating 
criticism of the ones proffered, authority rides the crest of 
the wave. But it is practically impossible to keep authority 
in this state of supremacy. Some event or person is always 
demanding the reason back of the conclusions. Only un¬ 
reasoning dogmatism can refuse to admit the justice of the 
request. So our immediate problem is to discover and con¬ 
sider the basic categories within whose bosom the various 
authorities finally seek refuge. 

One of the most important of these is intuitionism, which 
may be defined as the supra-rational perception of truths. 
Supra-rationalism is its distinguishing token, indicating that 
its discoveries are independent of logical reflective processes. 
Intuitionism does not claim that its truths are contra-rational; 
in fact it is more than likely to claim that they are amenable 
to the tools of reason after they have been laid bare by the 
moment of supra-rational insight. The fact of discovery is 
not due to rational processes, though the truths discovered 
may lend themselves to rational interpretation and system¬ 
atization. 

A further characteristic of intuitionism as a means to 
knowledge is indicated by the concept “supra-rational,” 
namely, that the data upon which it proceeds are not sen¬ 
sory in character. As we shall presently see, the successful 
mystic is one who can lay aside the data of normal experi- 



40 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

ence and ascend toward the vision of God; one of the favor¬ 
ite descriptions of the process is “ the flight of the Alone to 
the Alone.” Here again we must not infer that the discov¬ 
eries made in the area of supra-sensory experience are by 
definition hostile or unrelatable to mundane experiences. 
Rather the consensus of opinion among Christian mystics, 
at least, is that these ecstatic experiences make possible an 
evaluation of commonplace experiences in terms of the 
truths discovered in the moment of union with God. 

When we grasp the fact that intuitionism dispenses with 
logical processes and sensory data in its apprehension of 
truth, we are prepared for the conclusion that its truths ex¬ 
hibit the character of revelations, of full-fledged creations 
which spring from the yawning mystery of the universe and 
invade the passive soul of the mystic. Although this phrase¬ 
ology best fits religious mystics, its basic principle, namely, 
that intuition is the perception of revelation, is widely ap¬ 
plicable. 

Nicolai Hartmann, who is skeptically tolerant of religion, 
asserts that man has an intuitional consciousness by means 
of which he discerns the realm of values in all its transcend¬ 
ent splendor. 7 George Santayana, to whom religion is a 
form of poignant art, asserts that man has an “ intuition of 
essence” which is the sole foundation of knowledge — all 
else is animal faith. 8 

It is difficult to make a brief critique of so important an 
avenue to certainty, but its strength and weakness can be 
indicated. The strength of intuitionism lies in the fact that 
it is an operative factor in any and every discovery, since in 
the moment of discovery there is a reaching out beyond 

7 Ethics (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1932), I, chap. 6. 

8 Scepticism and Animal Faith (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923). 


The Meaning of Certainty 41 

observed data to a perception of a more inclusive arrange¬ 
ment or explanation of them. 9 Generalizations or hypoth¬ 
eses are basically adventures in intuition, attempts to grasp 
something not given yet relevant to the data under con¬ 
sideration. Precisely the same principle is implicit in Sir 
Isaac Newton’s discovery of the law of gravitation and in 
St. Paul’s perception of the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ. 
There is a significant difference in the area of verifiability, 
since the logical method and experimental evidences were 
much more conclusively marshaled to support Newton’s 
generalization than may ever be possible for St. Paul’s ad¬ 
venturous affirmation. These two examples are put in jux¬ 
taposition in order to show the scope, hence the strength, 
of the method of intuitionism. 

Its weakness is palpable and is generally recognized. In 
the first place, its truths are beyond correction or need of 
it if the supra-rational character of their discovery is em¬ 
phasized. Within the area of science this failing does not 
often occur because evidence and logic quickly make the 
insights useless or confirm them. Religious mysticism has 
always been dogged by the specter of discrepancies. If a 
discrepancy occurs between two intuitionists’ versions of 
their experience of God, either it must remain a discrepancy 
or be attributed to the waywardness of language. This lat¬ 
ter exit has been used with appalling frequency. 

A second weakness — and once more it is most obvious 
in the domain of philosophy and religion — is the tendency 
of religious mysticism to assume a type of metaphysical dual¬ 
ism, the reality of which can be proved only by a recourse to 
intuition. It professes to describe existence as it is for any 

9 Cf. George Thomas’ paper, “ A Reasoned Faith,” in The Nature of Religious 
Experience, J. S. Bixler, ed. (New York: Harper & Bros., 1937), p. 64. 


42 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

and all on the basis of evidence gathered by an ultimately 
esoteric method. By metaphysical dualism I mean two areas 
of truth, one encountered in sense data, the other mediated 
by supra-sensuous revelations. This picture of the stratifica¬ 
tion of reality may be an accurate one, but the weakness of 
intuitionism lies in the fact that there is no way whereby 
two intuitionists can confirm each other’s testimony to the 
nature of truth by revelation. I am not raising this as an 
insuperable obstacle to intuitionism, but it does indicate the 
area in which the method encounters most of its opposition 
as the pathway to certainty. 

There is another method by which certainty may be won 
and it impresses me as being the most promising we have. 
I refer to the method of observation and reason. Not as 
evidence of its validity but rather as testimonial to its signifi¬ 
cance, we may note the fact that John Dewey, an empiri¬ 
cist, and Morris Cohen, a rationalist, both pronounce their 
blessings upon it. Dewey becomes almost reverent in his 
description of it: “There are a steadily increasing number 
of persons who find security in methods of inquiry, of ob¬ 
servation, experiment, of forming and following working 
hypotheses. Such persons are not unsettled by the upsetting 
of any special belief, because they retain security of proce¬ 
dure. They can say, borrowing language from another con¬ 
text, though this method slay my most cherished beliefs, 
yet will I trust it! ” 10 

More precisely, there are three reasons why this method 
is best fitted to aid us in our quest for truth. First, it is true 
to the nature of reflective thought. Second, it is self-cor¬ 
rective. Third, it permits adequate communication. An 
amplification of each of these reasons, together with a con- 

10 Characters and 'Events, II, 437. 


The Meaning of Certainty 43 

sideration of the prime objection, will yield a comprehensive 
survey of both the strength and the weakness of this 
method. 

/. The method of observation and reason is true to the na¬ 
ture of reflective thought. Thought operates between two 
poles: the interested organism (not mind alone) and an ob¬ 
jective world. The problem of all life can be stated in terms 
of adjustment of organism to environment so as to sustain and 
promote life. Ultimately, for all forms of life, the search for 
this rapport proceeds by trial and error — “The best laid 
schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.” Reflective thought, 
as distinct from more passive types of mental activity, occurs 
when the even flow of attention strikes a snag. It is basically 
problem solving, as Dewey points out in How We Thin\. 
One of the characteristics which distinguish man from other 
forms of life is the way he can react in moments of frustra¬ 
tion. Instead of frantically surging this way and that, blindly 
searching for a solution by fair means or foul, man is capable 
of a “ delayed response,” that is, he can pause before the prob¬ 
lem and consider various possible solutions. 

It is impossible to improve upon the clarity of Professor 
Edwin A. Burtt’s analysis of the five steps involved in reflec¬ 
tive thought: (1) occurrence of something felt as a perplexity; 
(2) observation, designed to make clear precisely what the 
difficulty is; (3) occurrence to the mind of suggested solutions 
of the difficulty; (4) reasoning out the consequences involved 
in the suggestions thus entertained, and evaluating the sug¬ 
gestions by their aid; (5) observation or experiment to test 
by empirical fact the suggested solutions in the light of their 
implications. 11 

11 Principles and Problems of Plight Thinking (revised ed., New York: Harper 
& Bros., 1931), chap. 4, passim. 


44 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

If this is an adequate description of reflective thought, it is 
apparent that the method of observation and reason is as old 
as man’s capacity for reflection, and represents the highest 
development of a method of adjustment which is as old as life 
itself. 

But objections are forthcoming. John Oman, 12 William 
Temple 13 and F. R. Tennant, 14 eminent English philosophers 
of religion, unite in pointing out that this method is too nar¬ 
row to provide in and of itself an adequate approach to reality. 
It does yeoman service so long as the problem under consid¬ 
eration is in a carefully circumscribed area, but when one en¬ 
deavors to probe to the depths of reality with it, its inadequacy 
is readily manifest. Its weakness can be stated in simple 
terms: Observations are limited by hypotheses and reason con¬ 
forms to past experience. If the problem is to identify a his¬ 
torical specimen, these limitations will not prove serious. 
But what if the problem is whether there is cosmic purpose ? 
What then would you observe ? How would you formulate 
hypotheses ? Is not reason in need of faith when approaching 
this vast problem ? 

Although no conclusive answer to such questions is forth¬ 
coming, an approach to an answer is suggested by the second 
reason which I would offer for the acceptance of this method. 

2. It is self-corrective. Morris Cohen 15 emphasizes this as 
its unique characteristic. It alone among methods of thought 
candidly recognizes the weakness which inheres in its pro¬ 
cedure and the margin of error in its conclusions. But recog¬ 
nition of these failings is the first phase of a twofold reaction, 

12 Natural and Supernatural. 

13 Christianity in Thought and Practice (New York: Morehouse Publishing 
Co., 1936). 

14 Philosophy of the Sciences (London: Cambridge University Press, 1932). 

16 Op. cit., p. 155. 


The Meaning of Certainty 


45 

the second phase of which is the endeavor systematically to 
overcome them. 

Consider the general objection to the adequacy of the 
method — the argument that observation proceeds by means 
of definite hypotheses which act as blinders on the eyes of the 
observer. Whoever feels that a given hypothesis is too narrow 
is invited, nay, urged, to submit another not susceptible to this 
fault. The history of thought is one long testimony to the 
fact that new hypotheses issue in the discovery of new truths. 
Let it be admitted that the method of observation and reason 
will never, by one grand coup, force reality as a whole to 
capitulate to human knowledge. It proceeds step by step, 
first in this sector, then in that, pushing steadily at the front 
line of ignorance of reality. Whoever criticizes it, aids it. 
That it, at best, yields a piecemeal knowledge of reality is 
true. It would be a miserable method indeed if we possessed 
a reliable way of grasping reality in its entirety or in some 
essence. Various theories of knowledge purport to give this 
desideratum but not one is able to command a significant fol¬ 
lowing. All such finally revolve into special brands of intui- 
tionism and we have just seen how unreliable this method is. 

Lacking, then, a method for laying firm hands on things as 
a whole, we have little choice but to proceed by the method 
which can deal convincingly with aspects of the whole. We 
need not thereby give up as valueless the notion of the whole 
because, as we have seen, science is producing ever enlarging 
bodies of knowledge in various areas. Philosophy in its specu¬ 
lative and synthetic moods is endeavoring to discover princi¬ 
ples common and fundamental to all. The birth of several 
metaphysical schemes (those of Whitehead, S. Alexander, 
Boodin et al.) testifies to the possibilities of success. Then, 
too, theology’s new lease on life derives from the fact that 


46 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

creative minds are endeavoring to relate the known problems 
of human need to the knowledge we have of the universe. 
Widely divergent systems testify both to the virility of the 
enterprise and to the inconclusive character of metaphysical 
thought. There can be no important theology without a con¬ 
vincing philosophy, and this because philosophy endeavors to 
systematize our knowledge of the world, whereas theology at¬ 
tempts to relate such philosophical first principles to human 
needs. 

If the preceding analysis is accurate, observation and reason 
are the method which underlies significant development in 
science, philosophy and theology. The corpus of scientific 
knowledge, as well as philosophical and theological formu¬ 
lations, grows by steady adherence to it. It is not above re¬ 
proach, but it is more so than any other method, not alone 
because it is self-corrective but also because it possesses another 
and a unique virtue. 

j. It permits communication both as to procedure and as 
to conclusions. In no other regard is it in more vivid contrast 
with intuitionism. Intuitionism as the supra-rational aware¬ 
ness or apprehension of reality simply cannot transmit this 
experience by means of the social symbolism called language. 
Thoroughgoing intuitionists have been quick to recognize 
this failing. Plato laments the fact that the daring soul who 
left the cave to gaze on the sun stumbled as he returned to its 
gloom and endeavored to tell its jeering occupants what he 
had seen. St. John of the Cross is true to the entire tradition 
of Christian mysticism when he frankly acknowledges that 
he has no means of conveying to others the import of his vi¬ 
sions and ecstasies. The intuitionist may turn to the various 
arts and charge their symbols with his message, and when he 
has done this his attempts at communication are at an end. 


The Meaning of Certainty 


47 


He has no way of knowing whether he has conveyed even a 
portion of his experience to the outsider. The matter might 
be summed up thus: Intuitionism apparently yields a rich 
harvest of knowledge to the individual intuitionist, but he 
must play the miser with it, though through no fault of his 
own. Observation and reason yield knowledge which all 
intuitionists agree in dubbing “ barren,” “ meager,” “ sterile,” 
“ scrappy,” or “ integrated nonsense.” But this method pos¬ 
sesses the important advantage of having a public character 
by which all who seek may learn. The pathway to testing lies 
open to any and all who care to travel it. 

At the opening of the chapter it was suggested that cer¬ 
tainty be defined as man’s consciousness of a reliable relation¬ 
ship, stated in terms of beliefs, between himself and his world. 
The method of observation and reason provides the only cer¬ 
tainly reliable relationship, because it is the only method of 
relating man to his world that makes a place for the unelimi- 
nable margin of ignorance and error which borders human 
knowledge and sets out systematically to reduce it as far as 
possible. 

To accept this statement does not mean that the other types 
of certainty are useless. On the contrary, they are gathered 
by it into an organic whole where they comprise indispensable 
aspects of it. There is a necessary and inevitable amount of 
psychological certainty in the feeling that this method is valid 
and applicable. Lacking conclusive proof, we accept and 
follow this method as the best lead we have. Likewise, logical 
certainty is part and parcel of the method because the prime 
purpose of observation and reason is to produce an integrated 
body of beliefs, mutually implicative and sustaining. Obvi¬ 
ously the method has merit only because it promises to yield 
conclusions which are truer than those delivered by any other 


48 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

method, hence certainty of conclusion is admitted as a legiti¬ 
mate member of the household. But I cannot too vigorously 
insist that emphasis must not fall upon a feeling, or a system, 
or a conclusion; it must rest squarely upon the method by 
which these are examined and by which their validity is 
tested. 

Religion can well afford to investigate the meaning of this 
method for its peculiar province — the relating of life to God, 
the value structure of the universe. We have seen how man 
through the ages has groped toward a reliable relationship in 
this area. A widening circle of thinkers in religion is con¬ 
vinced that the method just described, by making the desired 
relationship more accurately articulate, will heighten the 
initial sense of security which roots in the consciousness of 
value. 

Yet we must frankly admit that on the whole philosophies 
of religion will look askance at this interpretation of the 
meaning of certainty. To them, the method suggested will 
doubtless constitute another example of throwing out the 
baby with the bath. I am convinced that their reluctance to 
use the method of observation and reason as the guide in the 
quest for religious certainty is attributable not so much to 
supreme confidence in other methods as to a misunderstand¬ 
ing of the tentative and incomplete nature of the conclusions 
which it yields. This misunderstanding is so deep-seated and 
widespread that it must be dealt with at this point. If, 
through the next four chapters, the probing seems overcau¬ 
tious, it would be well to remember that the source of infec¬ 
tion lies deep and close to the very heart of religious thought. 


IV 


THE MEANING OF TENTATIVENESS 
EFENDERS of philosophies of religion based upon 



either authoritarianism or intuitionism will be quick 


_Lto object that the method of observation and reason 
does not lead to indubitable conclusions. At most, they rea¬ 
son, it can only claim that the conclusions proffered are the 
best available and that it is endeavoring to make them truer 
approximations of reality. The conclusions, then, are not ab¬ 
solute and must be held subject to further investigation — 
that is, tentatively. Now it is argued that a tentative conclu¬ 
sion is entirely appropriate in the market places and labora¬ 
tories of life but that it has no place in religion. Professors 
Wilhelm Pauck and William Adams Brown represent the 
majority of theologians when they claim that tentativeness 
means the death of religion. 1 The secret of religious power 
is commitment to concrete objectives as well as to the gener¬ 
alized ideal (Kingdom of God); science proceeds by objectiv¬ 
ity and disinterestedness. Tentativeness is the breath of life 
to science but a blight upon the vitality of religion. Introduce 
tentativeness into religion, these writers say, and its reality 
and power will disappear like a morning mist at sunrise. 

The conclusions advanced by observation and reason in any 
area, whether in physics or in human values, must be held 
tentatively. This much of the preceding criticism not only 
must be acknowledged, but I am prepared to insist upon it. 

1 Pauck, Karl Barth, p. 6; W. A. Brown, Pathways to Certainty, pp. 210-n 
(footnote). 


49 


50 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

And this because I am convinced that when the notion of 
tentativeness is carefully and properly handled it is light and 
vigor rather than darkness and weakness for religion. The 
contemporary pell-mell flight from tentativeness has given 
rise to some exaggerated notions of the exact nature of the 
foe. The thesis I would defend implies the possibility that 
what we fear in ignorance may when illuminated prove to be 
our ally. 

But the notion of tentativeness in religion is distressing to 
others besides theologians and ministers. The reaction of 
these professional religionists is symbolic of a much graver 
problem. They mirror the quandary in which common folk 
find themselves when the necessity of modifying traditional 
religion is forced upon them. Therefore a defense of the 
place of tentativeness in religion must be stated in terms which 
will be either understood by or interpretable to those who live 
by their religion as well as those who also reflect upon it. If 
the notion of tentativeness served only to arouse drowsy theo¬ 
logians from comfortable slumbers or to distract their atten¬ 
tion from curious types of metaphysical calculus, most of us 
would bid it Godspeed. But when it enters into those areas of 
life where heads and hearts are weary with toil and doubt, 
where aching souls, already strained to the breaking point, 
seek succor of religion — if it enters here unannounced and 
uninterpreted it will be an unwelcome visitor and may cause 
untold damage. 

We might as well frankly face the fact that possibly no 
amount of interpretation and explanation can make tenta¬ 
tiveness at home in religious living. Only actual experience 
can do so. But that it is, in vague forms to be sure, at this very 
moment disrupting the thought and life of a growing number 
of religious people can hardly be doubted. How else can we 


The Meaning of Tentativeness 51 

explain the avid search for certainty which ministers, theolo¬ 
gians and laymen are conducting ? 

James Gordon Gilkey writes on The Certainty of God and 
declares that his purpose is “to help ordinary men and 
women find answers to the questions which arise repeatedly 
in everyday life.” 2 William Adams Brown shares this desire 
in his Pathways to Certainty and addresses himself “ to the 
problem of certainty in the simple and direct form in which 
it meets the men and women of our day who, in the conflicts 
of contemporary thought, are trying to find some firm foun¬ 
dation for a faith in themselves, in the world, and in God.” 3 

This is not the place for a critique of these and similar works 
that, if we may judge by their closing chapters, feel obligated 
to reaffirm all the traditional conclusions that have been im¬ 
portant in religious thought and life. 4 It seems to me that 
their exposition and defense of certainty is vitiated by their 
refusal fairly and adequately to analyze the concept of tenta¬ 
tiveness and relate it to their conclusions. What the resulting 
conclusions might lack in grandiose sweep they would more 
than retrieve in intellectual integrity. 

Perhaps the importance of studying the meaning of tenta¬ 
tiveness can be illustrated by the plight in which most of us 
find our religious faith. We want to be certain enough to 
live effectively, yet we do not want this certainty to grow into 
a shell of dogmatism which, while it protects us, deprives us 
of further growth. Somewhere in one’s faith there must be a 
growing edge if it is to keep pace with and be able to interpret 
and evaluate one’s enlarging experiences. Hard and fast con¬ 
clusions as to the ultimate nature of things are comfortable — 

2 Op. cit. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1928), p. 7. 

3 Op. cit., pp. x-xi. 

4 Bishop F. J. McConnell's Religious Certainty (New York: Methodist Book 
Concern, 1910) is an honorable exception in this regard. 


52 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

but only so long as one’s experience is relatively static. In my 
opinion the conception of tentativeness reinforces the sense of 
certainty, when certainty is defined as a reliable method of 
relating man to his world. The ensuing discussion, involved 
though it must necessarily be at times, is an endeavor to state 
why this is true. Let us first consider certain mistaken con¬ 
ceptions of the meaning of tentativeness. 

TWO MISCONCEPTIONS OF T E N T A T IV E N E S S 

i. Tentativeness is open-mindedness . This is a prevalent 
misconception and can persist only so long as the terms in¬ 
volved are carelessly handled. Open-mindedness can be so 
construed as to mean tentativeness, but this is not the ordinary 
use of the term. Its regular usage gives to it the character of 
willingness to reconsider one’s position, to receive new infor¬ 
mation, to reformulate ideas. One characterized by these at¬ 
titudes is correctly described as open-minded. But — and this 
is the crucial point — open-mindedness may or may not 
characterize any given person. It is descriptive of an act of 
will. One can be open-minded or not as he chooses. It is a 
volitional attitude. And a good many factors condition this 
willingness to do something or other at any given moment. 
For example, open-mindedness regarding the doctrine of im¬ 
mortality may be the result of any one of a number of events: 
a good meal, a pleasant journey, a genial companion whose 
ideas are different from ours, or a sense of social insecurity 
due to the fact that we are in the company of strangers whose 
opinions on the subject we do not know. The point I am 
making is that open-mindedness, as volitional act, may de¬ 
pend upon factors which are not even indirectly related to 
the truth or falsity of the position about which one suddenly 
becomes open-minded. 


The Meaning of Tentativeness 53 

In contrast, tentativeness may roughly be defined as en¬ 
forced open-mindedness. It is not due to volitional caprice 
occasioned by chance influences which may touch us in some 
way; it derives from factors directly related to the positions 
or ideas which are up for consideration. The factors which 
underlie tentativeness, which make open-mindedness inevi¬ 
table, can be neither strengthened nor modified by gustatory 
delight, charming or strange environment. They are, in 
short, vital facts about the matters under consideration and 
cannot be tempered or tampered with by extraneous in¬ 
fluences. Whereas open-mindedness is optional, that is, con¬ 
ditioned by factors which may be irrelevant to the prime issue, 
and has therefore only a chameleonlike stability, tentativeness 
is obligatory, since it derives from factors which are as real as 
the idea at issue and are indisputably relevant to it. 

2. Tentativeness is acquiescence in confusion. We rightly 
associate tentativeness with a condition of confusion, but it 
is a misconception to associate it with acquiescence in such 
confusion. Tentativeness does not belong to a situation 
wherein desires are satisfied by maintenance of existing habits. 
It belongs to a situation where the purposive drive of the 
organism, the desire-satisfaction cycle, is broken by failure 
to achieve satisfaction. At that point reflective thought comes 
into play in order to canvass the various possible ways of re¬ 
establishing the flow of purposiveness. Seldom can thought 
produce an either-or alternative in a concrete case. Multiple 
possibilities usually are discerned and indicated. 

It is precisely in this situation, when the thwarted organism 
is confronted by a variety of possible solutions, that some per¬ 
sons find the deepest meaning of tentativeness. It denotes 
someone who is “ halted between two opinions ” like King 
Claudius in Hamlet, who desires both peace of soul and the 


54 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

very thing which precludes this, namely, continuing in the 
possession of power. The proverbial mule starving to death 
between two equally large and tempting stacks of hay is an 
adequate symbol of this interpretation of tentativeness. It de¬ 
velops its case by arguing that the moment activity is essayed 
along the line of any one of the alternatives, tentativeness 
gives way to decision. 5 

I venture to suggest that this conception of tentativeness is 
too limited. By this I mean to call attention to the fact that 
tentativeness is an integral part of a larger method used with 
more or less exactitude in every concrete problem, namely, the 
method of science. Professor E. A. Burtt points out this 
larger context when he describes the threefold ideal of science 
as (i) discovery of universal law, (2) tentativeness in think¬ 
ing, and (3) exactitude in evaluating results. 6 Apropos tenta¬ 
tiveness he writes: “The human achievement which this 
word represents is really a stupendous one.” 7 

The precise point of the larger setting of tentativeness is 
that it is characteristic of reflective thought whenever, when¬ 
ever and as long as reflection persists. It is not a state of in¬ 
decision which one steps out of when he accepts one of several 
alternatives, unless this alternative restores the organic equi¬ 
librium which the conflict disturbed. When we say that ten¬ 
tativeness is coextensive with reflective thought, whether in 
some exact laboratory enterprise or in some less specialized 
area, we are giving it a much broader scope than that of the 
restricted identification as the moment of confusion. It is 
equally characteristic of the movement away from confusion 
and is descriptive of the reflective process which persists until 

5 Dr. E. S. Ames has called such decision by action a “ practical absolute.” 

6 Religion in an Age of Science (New York: Frederick Stokes & Co., 1929). 

7 Ibid., p. 74. 


The Meaning of Tentativeness 55 

the harmonious flow of the desire-satisfaction cycle has been 
re-established. It is not acquiescence in confusion; rather its 
first step is to acknowledge the reality of confusion, and it 
then continues as an integral factor in the method by which 
the confusion is overcome. 

FACTORS UNDERLYING TENTATIVENESS 

Tentativeness derives from certain logical and cosmological 
considerations. It rests upon both a characteristic of empiri¬ 
cal knowledge and an attribute of empirical metaphysics. 
Few emphases are more instructive of the uniqueness of con¬ 
temporary philosophical thought than the widespread atten¬ 
tion given to problems of probability in logic and contingency 
in metaphysics. If probability and contingency are accepted 
as valid categories (and an increasing number of influential 
thinkers are so accepting them), then the meanings of tenta¬ 
tiveness are here to stay, not in philosophy alone but in reli¬ 
gion and in every other attempt to describe the world in gen¬ 
eral and to evaluate and order human life. Hence scientific, 
philosophical and religious knowledge are all affected by 
these two considerations which underlie tentativeness. 

/. Empirical truths are probable only . Bishop Butler’s fa¬ 
mous assertion, “Probability is the very guide of life,” is 
drawn from the matrix of human experience. Only a mo¬ 
ment’s reflection is necessary to reveal the fact that most of our 
so-called “ certainties ” are in reality probabilities. We say 
with certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow, but second 
thought always takes the absoluteness from the proposition 
and steps its certainty down to probability. All this is widely 
recognized. Professor C. I. Lewis sums it up in a single 
trenchant sentence: “ I would point out, that granting all the 
universal truth and all the certainty that the most ambitious 


56 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

theory has ever claimed, if it were not for the more lowly 
knowledge of probabilities based on generalities which have 
their known exceptions, we would most of us be dead within 
the week.” 8 

In so far as religion retains its empirical note (This do and 
thou shalt live), its recommendations must be regarded as 
probable only. Yet to many there is something heinous in 
such a position. Even Francis Bacon, who must be given a 
place of honor among tough-minded thinkers, concluded 
that “ behind spiritual uncertainty lies moral decay.” If one 
wants to cite great men in the Christian tradition one gets 
even stronger testimonial to the fact that the truths of religion 
are, or must be regarded as, more than probable. Paul, 
Origen, Augustine, Aquinas — and almost every other domi¬ 
nant mind — can be drawn as witnesses to this assertion. 
Though their illuminating insights continue to this day as 
stars by which we fix our course, we dare not overlook the fact 
that many of their endeavors to solve specific problems im¬ 
press us as being something less than profound — witness 
Paul’s advice as to ornaments, veils, hair, place of women in 
church; the aged Augustine’s efforts to determine purity in 
women. 

If someone protests that these objections deal with the 
minutiae of religion rather than with its broad truths, I can 
only reply that in so far as they demonstrate the inability of 
the so-called “ broad or fundamental ” truths to give infallible 
guidance in specific problems, such truths are probable only 
and argue for the reality of the fact of tentativeness in religion 
and demand its overt recognition. 

But what precisely is involved when we say that an empiri- 

8 Mind and the World Order (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929), p. 


334- 


The Meaning of Tentativeness 57 

cal truth is probable only ? How much foundation is there 
for the fear that if all we have is probable truths we cannot 
defend ourselves and our faith from skepticism ? The chap¬ 
ter that follows endeavors to answer these problems by analyz¬ 
ing the nature of probability. Just now we must be content 
to notice that probability is one of the factors which underlie 
the notion of tentativeness. 

2. Contingency is characteristic of reality . As we shall be 
using the term, “ contingency ” is synonymous with chance, 
indeterminacy and unpredictability. It was formerly a mem¬ 
ber in good standing in the metaphysical fraternity, in fact 
if not in name. For example, the crux of Plato’s speculations 
is the conception of ideas, or essences, struggling to bring 
order, form and being into cloddy, inert, intractable matter. 
But this cosmic thrust is never completely successful. The 
resultant item always shows its dual parentage. The idea 
incarnate in matter is always thwarted, degraded, and is for¬ 
ever yearning to be released from its material prison. It is 
never quite clear in Plato’s thought why matter should be so 
recalcitrant, but the facts of experience seem eloquently and 
unanimously to affirm that it is so. 

Aristotle, using a different pattern of thought — that of 
biology — made no significant alteration in the basic Platonic 
conception. For him, the notion of entelechy is that of a 
form struggling to realize itself through insentient, inert 
matter, which manages always in some measure to frustrate 
the effort. Witness the fact that we never see the potential 
oak in an acorn. What we view is the potential oak as it 
has fought its way into actuality conditioned by fertility of 
soil, amount of rainfall and severity of weather. 

Then, historically, with the dawn of the age of absolutes — 
idealistic and otherwise — the doctrine of contingency was 


58 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

thrust out of the philosophical fraternity. This exclusion 
made it possible for philosophers to slumber quietly on the 
bosom of the notion of universal law of one sort or another. 
Newtonian physics provided the sleeping powders which 
prolonged the slumbers when restiveness was manifested a 
couple of centuries ago. But at the turn of this century, and 
for exactly those reasons which led to the devaluation of 
science, 9 the doctrine returned and created such a commo¬ 
tion that science and philosophy alike have readmitted it, 
albeit warily, into the circle of the brethren. 

Obviously this talk of chance, waywardness, unpredictabil¬ 
ity as a fundamental characteristic of the universal structure 
of things must sound perilously like nonsense to the Chris¬ 
tian whose doctrine of God has always meant cause, design, 
order and purpose in things as a whole. His first reaction 
will probably be to ascribe the entire notion to human igno¬ 
rance, reasoning that what we call chance is simply an un¬ 
explored area in the universe. 10 

How much truth is there in this tendency to equate con¬ 
tingency with human ignorance? Is it possible either logi¬ 
cally or actually to conceive of a world in which contingency 
is an ineradicable factor ? In any event, what becomes of the 
theistic conception of a controlling purpose? These and 
related questions cannot be answered until we have taken care 
to see precisely what is involved in the concept of contingency, 
a venture which will occupy Chapter VI. 

9 Cf. Chap. 11. 

10 This is the orthodox Roman Catholic position. Cf. A. D. Sertillanges, 
Foundations of Thomistic Philosophy (London: Sands & Co., 1932). In substan¬ 
tial agreement is H. H. Farmer, op. cit., chap. 6. 


The Meaning of Tentativeness 


59 


THE PRINCIPLE OF POLARITY 

The ensuing efforts further to delineate the nature of proba¬ 
bility and contingency will make constant use of the principle 
of polarity as described and defended by Morris Cohen. 11 
Therefore a word of explanation about it is now in order. 

It is, primarily, a suggestive attempt to provide a method 
by which the wealth of reality will be treated fairly. As such 
it is a thoroughgoing protest against the facile attempt to 
impale reality on the horns of the either-or dilemma. So- 
called contradictory concepts upon careful examination turn 
out to be supplementary, so much so that one without the 
other is lost. Neither alone is true. The truth of the matter 
lies between them, though there are difficulties in a clear state¬ 
ment of it. In addition, the principle of polarity is definitely 
opposed to any endeavor to blur or gloss over the differences 
which inhere in the contradictory concepts. It jealously in¬ 
sists that each one has hold of a vital area of fact and that the 
total conception will be enriched by the retention of both. 
Therefore the principle of polarity is aimed not so much at 
the resolution of contradictions as it is toward the preservation 
of differences by holding the contradictory concepts together 
in the belief that the truth lies between them, i.e., in their 
relationship. 

An example would be the venerable philosophical antith¬ 
esis between individuality and universality. One pauses 
before using it, since it has been the cause of so much bad 
blood for two thousand years. Each of the concepts purports 
adequately to explain reality. Exponents of individuality 
point out that individuals are all we ever experience whether 
directly or inferentially. As one of Plato’s critics put it, 

11 Reason and Nature, pp. xi, 18 f., 135. 


6o The Quest for Religious Certainty 

“ Horses I see, but ‘ horseness ’ I do not see.” But the de¬ 
fenders of universality proceed to show how the so-called indi¬ 
viduals are simply manifestations of an enduring substratum 
from which they derive their distinguishing characteristics. 
Hence the locus of reality is in the substratum rather than in 
its temporary manifestation. Plato would reply to his critic: 
“ When you say you see horses, what you mean, among other 
things, is that you behold something which is familiar, that is, 
it exhibits the characteristics common to ‘ horse * rather than 
fowl. If you say you see a brown horse, the color is universal 
in precisely the same sense as horse is. Therefore any indi¬ 
vidual horse is ultimately a temporary pattern of universals.” 
The principle of polarity is an honest endeavor to hold the 
truths of both contestants together because reality answers to 
both descriptions despite their contradictory aspects. 

We shall have cause to see that probability and certainty as 
well as contingency and structure demand the rigorous use of 
this principle of interpretation. But we must guard against 
that facile use of it by which one foregoes all effort to resolve 
the contradiction. Herein lies the genius of science and 
scientific method. It is a ceaseless endeavor to resolve the 
differences by discovering a system of meanings inclusive of 
them. We shall see concrete cases of how this works in the 
following chapters on probability and contingency. 


V 


THE NATURE OF PROBABILITY 

I F WE ARE to capture the meaning of this elusive concept, 
probability, we must move both comprehensively and pa¬ 
tiently. And success demands that we venture into the 
difficult and oftentimes poorly lighted haunts of the logician. 
But he has much to teach us on this point since the problem of 
probability is, as we shall see, largely a logical one. It arises in 
connection with a certain type of judgment which is the stuff 
of empirical knowledge. However, there is another type of 
judgment, based upon a priori or rational or necessary truths, 
in which probability has no place whatsoever. The meaning 
and importance of the notion of probability cannot be deter¬ 
mined until we “ spot ” probability on the map of logic, so 
to speak. When we see that it is an integral aspect of all em¬ 
pirical knowledge, and remember that religion has always 
striven to put its message in terms of such knowledge, we 
shall be in a position to gauge, in some measure, its impact 
upon religion. Our first step in this direction is to get a 
firmer grasp on the two general types of logical judgments; 
then we shall take a cross section of what is meant by em¬ 
pirical knowledge. 

INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE JUDGMENTS 

The Greeks early discerned a significant difference in the 
properties of the objects which they found in their world. 
Aristotle spoke of this as the necessary and accidental prop¬ 
erties of things. He thereby drew a distinction which has 

61 


62 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

wielded tremendous influence on Western thought. Logic, 
for him, included two methods of thought, induction and de¬ 
duction. Induction denotes man’s endeavor to discover, de¬ 
scribe and relate to a deeper causal sequence the accidental 
properties in order to determine the essential character of 
things. It takes the world of fact, that is, the world as we 
find it, a welter of manifestations, and endeavors to discover 
behind or within it the structure or form which is essential or 
necessary to its existence. Plato and Aristotle agree that the 
essence of an object does not lie on its surface but must be 
ferreted out. For example, the essential part of an oak is not 
any one of the discernible characteristics such as root, leaf, or 
bark, but is the formative principle by virtue of whose dy¬ 
namic operations these manifestations or accidental properties 
come into existence. They do not explain it but it does ex¬ 
plain them. But our only approach to this essence is by way 
of its manifestations. We never see the oak form; all we en¬ 
counter is individual oak trees. Induction, in this case, aims 
faithfully to enumerate and accurately to describe the sensory 
impressions yielded by oak trees and, proceeding by way 
of inference, to lay bare to reason the causative principle or 
form which alone is explanatory of the dynamic nature of an 
oak tree. Induction is in search of what Morris Cohen calls 
“ some invariant relation that simulates the invariance of logi¬ 
cal or mathematical relations.” 1 C. W. Morris points out 
a profoundly significant implication of inductive thought: 
“ When induction is pressed toward certainty, it collapses into 
deduction.” 2 Inductive judgments provide the basis of 
empirical knowledge, information based upon sensory im¬ 
pressions. 

1 Reason and Nature, p. 119. 

2 Unpublished class lectures, University of Chicago, 1933. 


The Nature of Probability 63 

At first glance deduction is worlds removed from induc¬ 
tion. It proceeds from the essential principle to some concrete 
embodiment of it. Needless to say, examples drawn from 
fields other than logic (syllogistic) and mathematics (whose 
procedure parallels that of syllogistic logic) are not forthcom¬ 
ing. Biology is an inductive rather than a deductive science 
because it is in search of the invariant principle which explains 
various manifestations of life. 

Inductive judgments take the form of existential proposi¬ 
tions; e.g., the book is red, or the tree is fifty feet in height. 
Such propositions constitute empirical knowledge. They are 
descriptive of the thousand and one judgments we make in 
the course of every day relative to clothes, weather, compan¬ 
ions, contests, etc. They are equally descriptive of the biolog¬ 
ical and social sciences which proceed from observation of 
particulars to formulation of generalizations. 

Deductive judgments take the form of tautological proposi¬ 
tions. These are harder for laymen in logic to grasp. They 
are not concerned about existence, the world of concrete ob¬ 
jects. They deal with the logical implications of a concept 
or a system of concepts. Their purpose is to make clearer the 
precise implications of the premises from which the judg¬ 
ment proceeds. The classic syllogism: “ All men are mortal; 
Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal,” illustrates the 
point. The conclusion simply calls attention to a specific 
implication of the premises. 

There is a clear illustration of the difference between tauto¬ 
logical and existential propositions. The properties of a per¬ 
fect circle or a perfect lever can be enunciated with a clarity 
and precision which yield indisputable certainty, not because 
anyone has ever seen, measured or balanced such, but pre¬ 
cisely because the argument proceeds by definition of con- 


6 \ The Quest for Religious Certainty 

cepts rather than by manipulation of existential materials. It 
is one thing to reason: “ The area of a circle is reached by 
7rr 2 ,” and quite another to infer: “The area of this circle is 
yielded by 7rr 2 .” The first proposition is tautological (pre¬ 
scriptive, 3 in that it states what, by definition, must be so); the 
second is existential (descriptive, in that it states what, after 
experimentation, may prove to be true). 

Induction and deduction being thus pushed so far apart it 
may seem gratuitous to show wherein they are vitally inter¬ 
dependent. Yet contemporary logicians insist that this must 
be done. Whitehead somewhere remarks that induction and 
deduction are two ends of the same worm. Morris Cohen is 
of the opinion that “ induction and deduction are not . . . 
antithetic terms in the realm of purely formal logic. The dif¬ 
ference between them is one concerning material evidence.” 4 
Exactly how they supplement each other will be apparent, 
I think, when we have spent some time analyzing the units 
of empirical knowledge. 

ANALYSIS OF EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE 5 

Strictly speaking, the simplest possible unit of empirical 
knowledge has three distinct aspects or phases. These com¬ 
mingle as an organic unity in the flow of conscious processes 
and are discernible as separate constituents only when we in¬ 
ject the catalyst of logical analysis. The interdependent na¬ 
ture of the constituents makes an exposition of them as 
separate entities difficult because a satisfactory clarification of 
one is impossible prior to an introduction and at least partial 

8 The terms “prescriptive” and “descriptive” were suggested by C. W. 
Morris in unpublished class lectures, 1933. 

4 Op. cit., p. 119. 

5 The outline of this section is suggested by C. I. Lewis, Mind and the World 
Order. 


The Nature of Probability 65 

explanation of the other two. But our present task is to locate 
the source of probability, and since that appears to be some¬ 
where in the area of empirical knowledge we must proceed 
with the analysis. 

The constituents of the unit of empirical knowledge in the 
order in which they will be discussed are: (1) sense data or 
the “ given (2) meanings or the concept; (3) consequences 
or verification. Understand now, we are dealing with the 
world of concrete realities which flows by every moment of 
every day of every sentient organism. The function of 
thought in the milieu is eminently practical, as we have seen. 
Knowledge gained in this area is empirical knowledge, and 
from it stems the nature of probability. 

1. Sense Data or the Given. The naive realist (and this 
catches most of us) simply takes the witness of his senses at 
its face value. They carry with them the overtone of ob¬ 
jectivity, and he does not demur. He does not see redness, 
feel roundness and taste sweetness. He sees, feels and eats an 
apple that is red, round and sweet. For him all qualitative 
variations are inherent in objects, and are not the product of 
subjective reactions. 

But naive realism is surrounded by caustic critics who con¬ 
stantly call attention to the facts of illusion and disagreement 
between two observers of the same objective reality. The de¬ 
bate is characterized by many subtle distinctions which with 
proper and tender care flower into various theories of knowl¬ 
edge. Although our present purpose does not permit a de¬ 
scription of these differences, I would not thereby give the 
impression that they are unimportant, because the reverse is 
true so far as philosophy in general is concerned. But for 
our special purpose we need only note that all schools agree 
that the mind begins to work with some item or other which 


66 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

is not created in toto but which has an independent character 
of its own. This we shall recognize hereinafter as “the 
given.” Several facets of it demand attention. 

a) The given is based upon sensory impressions. (Other 
synonyms are “qualia,” “sensa” or “sense data.”) The 
simple fact about these impressions is that they have objective 
validity. That is, they are manifestations or aspects of an ex¬ 
ternal reality. This is plain enough when we contend that 
the sensory impressions provoked by a tree trunk indicate a 
reality objective to the observer. Yet the principle is precisely 
the same when the sensa comprising the given spring from 
dreams or illusions. Such phenomena per se are as objectively 
real as the tree trunk in that they stimulate conscious behavior. 
They have to do with things rich in sensory images — things 
seen, heard, felt. In short, illusions or dreams are things actu¬ 
ally experienced, in a queer distorted way, perhaps, but none 
the less as truly objective for empirical inquiry as any object 
in the environment outside the organism. 6 What we know, 
empirically speaking, must come fundamentally through sen¬ 
sory impressions. If, as Oman and the mystics claim, there 
is knowledge beyond these sense impressions, then the only 
point I care now to make is that it is not empirical knowledge. 

b) The given is incomplete. It is never a revelation of the 
actual and potential concreteness of the parent object. It is a 
genuine clue to this fuller nature though, and deserves con¬ 
sideration for this reason. The given is a clue to types of 
activity which, as we shall see in the next two sections, aim 
to reveal the more inclusive nature of the object. An object 
per se is never given in experience. All impressions of it are 
relative to the perceiver. This does not in any way invalidate 

6 Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (New York: The Macmillan 
Co., 1933). 


The Nature of Probability 


67 

the fact that the given is a real and reliable perspective of the 
object; it is, so to speak, the object viewed a certain way. This 
characteristic of the given adumbrates the conclusion that 
what we mean by “ object ” is the objective focal point of 
varieties of perspectives. 

c) The given is singled out, as a rule, by the run of atten¬ 
tion of the total organism, yet maintains its objective identity. 
A botanist bent on discovering and classifying the flowers of 
a given locality will be sensitive to the visual sensations which 
are the given of flowers and may totally neglect the animal 
life which is as real as flowers though not relevant to his pur¬ 
suit. It can be laid down as a general rule that we see what 
we look for; that the dominant interest determines what sensa 
or qualia are actually perceived and become the clue to in¬ 
ductive generalizations and the basis of empirical knowledge. 

One form of subjectivism is likely to intrude at this point 
and therefore deserves special attention. It maintains that 
we see only what we look for; that experience is wholly at 
the behest of desire. Anyone who has heard a tornado or 
hurricane hurtle by knows better. No one desires these, or 
earthquakes, floods, illness, etc., yet they inject themselves 
prominently into experience. It is possible to give due weight 
to the tendency of interest to narrow perception without go¬ 
ing to the extreme just mentioned. I venture the opinion that 
the objective character of the given, which is so obvious in 
these cases, is descriptive of its nature wherever and whenever 
perceived. The botanist is willing to accept novelty in a 
specimen; in fact, contemporary movements in science are 
recovering considerable humility in the presence of their ma¬ 
terials. Surprises are hoped for and welcomed as eagerly as 
they are avidly catalogued and explained. 

d) The given is apprehended by means of concepts. The 


68 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

botanist is not looking for purely sense data; he is searching 
for flowers. Granted, his only contact with them is via sen¬ 
sory impressions, yet the concept “ flower ” denotes a cluster 
of meanings of which color, odor and structure are specific 
aspects. The given as sense data is merely candidating for 
the status of knowledge. It must be conceptualized, placed 
in an inclusive system of meanings by means of successful 
predication of consequences, before it becomes empirical 
knowledge. 

2. Meanings or the Concept. Here, it seems to me, instru¬ 
mentalism scores a clean-cut decision over other philosophical 
schools. For it, meaning is potential doing. To discover the 
meaning of a specimen, a new word, idea or custom is to se¬ 
cure fuller information as to its environs; that is to say, what 
its functions are in the light of the totality of which it is a part. 7 
Empirical knowledge is funded in concepts which are best 
understood as clusters of meanings. Another way of stating 
it is that the concept is a summary of experience and is brought 
by the mind as a priori truth to the given in any particular 
case. A traveler in the dusk of evening, expecting trouble, 
shall we say, receives a set of sensory impressions, visual and 
auditory, pertaining to something by the roadside. Past ex¬ 
periences, including stories of such happenings, of things 
“ that ” shape, of “ that ” sound, rush forward in the form of 
concepts and suggest ways of reacting. “ It ” may be a stump, 
or an animal or a crouching man, amid swaying bushes. 
Each possibility is embodied in a concept which suggests ap¬ 
propriate types of reaction. In any event, what the traveler 
needs is more information about “ that.” He secures this by 
selecting the most promising concept, stump, let us say, and 

7 Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics, insists that all scientific concepts 
are fundamentally “ operational.” 


The Nature of Probability 69 

checking up on it. If “ it ” is a stump, then he can treat it in 
certain ways. If he approaches it as a stump and it springs at 
him, another concept (perhaps another man) is necessary to 
explain the augmented character of the original given. Em¬ 
pirical knowledge of what any “ it ” or “ that ” is an aspect 
of awaits the application of concepts until the predictions or 
meanings implicit in one fit the behavior of the objective 
reality. 

George Herbert Mead makes much of the fact that we 
learn through actual and imaginative manipulation. Every 
object has a “ manipulatory area ” and we embody in our 
concept of that object the various ways we can work with it. 
Whether our description of it is accurate can be determined 
only by experience. If we can manipulate it according to pre¬ 
diction, we label that concept true. 

Several pointed assertions can be made as to the nature of 
the concept, so conceived. 

a) In the first place, it is a summary of past experience. It 
is what we have learned to expect in similar situations en¬ 
countered in the past. Concepts, therefore, grow with ex¬ 
perience. Such commonly used ones as matter, energy, life, 
mind, God are cases in point. They gather into themselves 
all the findings of all the experiments and reflections con¬ 
ducted within certain areas to date. They are endeavors to 
predict the fuller nature of any problematic sense data or 
given on the basis of this aggregate of experience. Another 
way of stating it is that concepts denote meaningful ways of 
dealing with any specific given in order to discover the fuller 
nature of the objective reality which the given mediates to the 
mind. 

b) Another and equally important characteristic is that 
a concept is always a priori to any particular judgment which 


70 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

utilizes it. A priori, for our purpose, designates the fact that 
we have past experience summarized in the form of units, 
conveniently precise. Such units of meaning are called con¬ 
cepts and are accepted truths prior to the problem. Sensory 
impressions are never simply received; they are objects of 
more or less immediate reaction, which, in turn, rests on pre¬ 
vious experience. We approach a given with a mind teem¬ 
ing with possible interpretations of its fuller significance. 
Those psychologists who argue that our run of interest de¬ 
termines what we see have exploited this truth. 

c) A third aspect of a concept is that when it endeavors to 
deal with existential data about which empirical evidence is 
possible, its truth value for empirical evidence must be tested 
by consequences. William James pointed out that the most 
important thing about a concept is its “cash value.” He 
further insisted that you could tell words, like trees, by their 
fruits. Whether past experience adequately interprets a pres¬ 
ent problem or whether the latter will reveal some latent 
characteristic and thereby change the concept is not germane 
to our present purpose. The fundamental point to keep in 
mind is that the truth of an empirical judgment cannot be 
determined before the eventuation of the predictions implicit 
in the concept. 

3. Consequences or Verification. All that has been said 
about the given and the concept can be applied either directly 
or indirectly to the meaning of consequences. James’s “ cash 
value,” Mead’s “ manipulatory area ” and Dewey’s “ instru¬ 
mentalism ” one and all deal with verification through ful¬ 
fillment of predicated activity. For empirical knowledge, 
then, the measure of truth inherent in a concept is determined 
by the accuracy with which it adumbrates the fuller nature 


The Nature of Probability 71 

of the object to which the given acts as clue. Verification, 
so conceived, occurs after, not before, the act of applying 
the meanings which constitute the concept. 

As we have seen, the concept endeavors to confer full-blown 
individuality upon the given. It is a judgment as to the 
character of the whole of which only a part is given. Veri¬ 
fication, therefore, indicates that the meaningful activity im¬ 
plicit in the concept is descriptive of the fuller character of the 
object. The blur in the bushes by the roadside may be stump 
or man or lurking beast of prey. Fuller experience alone can 
tell which is the truer concept. If the traveler flees down the 
road without gaining further knowledge of the blur, he may 
be a safer, but most assuredly he will not be a wiser man. 
His knowledge of the object in the bushes begins and ends 
with the assertion regarding his visual and auditory impres¬ 
sions of its indistinct shape and inconclusive sound. The only 
real fact in his knowledge of the whole situation is this: he 
thought he saw and heard something in the bushes. 

EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY 

We are now ready to spend some time with the notion, 
mentioned earlier, that induction and deduction are sup¬ 
plementary aspects of empirical knowledge. The quickest 
way to the heart of the matter is to make, then illustrate and 
justify, the assertion that logical validity is essential to the 
growth of empirical truth; that is to say that deduction is 
operative in the development of inductive knowledge. Or 
what logicians regard as certain truth is an integral factor 
in the achievement of probable truth. If this can be shown 
to be the case, we are then in a position to define and thereby 
place in usable form the notion of probability. 


72 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

A dramatic but fair example of how empirical knowledge 
grows occurred several years ago. 8 Mayor Cermak of Chi¬ 
cago, struck down by an assassin’s bullet, hovered between life 
and death for several days. The doctors, specialists all, dis¬ 
agreed as to his chances of recovery. The morning paper for 
February 26, 1933, carried the following items that are perti¬ 
nent to our problem: (1) an electric cardiogram showed that 
definite damage had been wrought in the mayor’s heart struc¬ 
ture in the past twelve hours; (2) he was sleeping only under 
the influence of opiates; (3) his blood pressure, temperature 
and respiration were no more alarming than they had been 
the day before. On the basis of these and, of course, other 
data not published (but presumably the same for all of them) 
the doctors issued a bulletin which indicated that while the 
mayor’s condition was somewhat worse than it had been, they 
sharply disagreed as to the outcome. Three felt he had a 
chance to live; one felt that he was certain to die, and that 
shortly. The latter added that he might be wrong but didn’t 
think so. 

A little reflection shows that these judgments can be placed 
in the framework of the syllogism (deductive logic): 

Major premise: All patients characterized by certain data 
have more than an even chance to live (or die, said 
one doctor). 

Minor premise: This patient exhibits these data (same 
for all). 

Conclusion: This patient will live (die). 

The major premise is an aggregate of each doctor’s ex¬ 
perience with relevant cases. It constitutes what might be 

8 An equally pertinent one is the conflict between the pre-election polls on the 
presidential campaign of 1936 conducted respectively by Mr. Gallup and the 
Literary Digest. 


The Nature of Probability 


73 

called a “ universe of reference. ,, 9 This can be more carefully 
described as the group of rationally certified and acceptable 
propositions which constitute a definite, though usually un¬ 
articulated, premise from which the doctor’s judgments must 
proceed. Professor C. I. Lewis writes: “ Such ultimate prem¬ 
ises . . . must be actual given data for the individual who 
makes the judgment, hence the probability of a given for¬ 
mulation may vary from individual to individual, according 
to our individual knowledge of a relevant sort.” 10 

The minor premise is an item drawn from the flow of ex¬ 
perience which is refined by techniques of observation and 
measurement. 

The conclusion, likewise, awaits future events before it be¬ 
comes an item of empirical knowledge. Obviously some 
doctor was wrong on the morning of February 26, 1933; 
wrong, in that what he predicted would come to pass did not. 
In this case, the majority was decidedly wrong because Mayor 
Cermak died within a few days. 

Such is the possible fate of all empirical judgments: they 
may or may not prove true. Only future developments can 
determine. Hence we sprinkle conclusions of this type with 
such qualifying words as “ likely,” “ almost certainly,” “ prob¬ 
ably.” Obviously, there is a one-to-one ratio between empiri¬ 
cal knowledge and probability. 

But the point I want to raise now does not permit an easy 
solution. What is there about empirical judgments which 
makes them even probably true ? Prior to the death of the 
mayor the conflicting judgments had a measure of probable 
truth in them. Two factors comprise the major premise 

9 J. M. Keynes, Treatise on Probability (London: The Macmillan Co., 1921), 
P- 131. 

10 Op. cit., p. 329. Cf. C. D. Broad, “ The Relation between Induction and 
Probability,” Mind (New Series), XXVII, 391-92. 


74 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

in these and other empirical judgments, and provide the 
degree of truth which inheres in the conclusion. They are 
(i) individual experience of a related sort, and (2) the logical 
framework by which they are dovetailed into a single com¬ 
prehensive judgment. Hence when a new and therefore un¬ 
finished case is thought to belong to this class the all-inclusive 
judgment is advanced as a prediction of what to expect. The 
entire judgmental process is stated in such a way as to be 
logically valid. The doctor reasons thus: If the major premise 
is true, and if the minor premise is true, then the conclusion 
must necessarily follow. Taken as an exercise in deduction, 
there is no flaw in this reasoning. Even those judgments 
which proved to be empirically inaccurate were none the less 
logically valid. Strictly speaking, deductive logic is much 
more concerned about logical integrity than about the ap¬ 
plicability of its conclusions to the existential world. 11 But 
these doctors were not interested in logical validity. What 
they were striving for was an accurate prediction of the course 
of empirical events. We may rest assured that mistake in this 
famous case not only would repudiate the conclusion but 
would substantially modify the major premise. Yet the really 
crucial point for our purpose is that the whole enterprise of 
empirical truth in this situation depended for growth upon 
the logical validity of the physicians’ reasoning. Not alone 
conclusion as to eventual outcome, but prescriptions, treat¬ 
ment, etc., were determined by means of the same logical 
procedure. 

Deduction, then, brings to bear in an articulate form past 
experience of a relevant sort. The case to which it applies 
its reasoning may not respond as predicted. Only time will 

11 Lewis, op. cit., p. viii: “ Logical integrity and concrete applicability are 
quite separate matters.” 


The Nature of Probability 


75 

tell. But when it does respond it will be used in the construc¬ 
tion of a truer universe of reference. Therefore, we see how 
induction (for the modification or reinforcement of the uni¬ 
verse of reference by the case under scrutiny is induction) and 
deduction are supplementary aspects of empirical procedure. 

THE MEANING OF PROBABILITY 

Probability characterizes the endeavor of that which is logi¬ 
cally valid to become empirically true. This definition de¬ 
scribes the precise place in experience where the concept 
emerges and carries meaning. So to define it is only to sum¬ 
marize the preceding pages of this chapter and to state in 
succinct form the principle of polarity as it mediates between 
a priori certainty and empirical probability. When we say 
that we live by probable rather than by certain truths it is 
important to keep in mind that without the latter we could 
never achieve the former. 12 Nothing is more certain than 
logical validity. Logical inferences are called necessary 
truths. We have just seen how such inferences are potent 
factors in the development of empirical truth. An empirical 
judgment in which logical validity (binding past experience 
to present problems) is an integral factor is a probable truth. 
An empirical judgment without logical validity is the wildest 
form of guesswork. 

One of the first reactions to this line of thought can be stated 
as a question: Is acceptance of probability as the measure of 
empirical truth tantamount to skepticism ? This is important 
because of the widespread identification of probability and 
skepticism. 

Skepticism derives from what metaphysicians call the pos¬ 
sibility of “ infinite regress ” in an investigation. Archimedes’ 

12 Ibid., pp. 310-11. 


76 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

proud boast that if there were a place to stand he could lift 
the world with his lever aptly illustrates the meaning of skep¬ 
ticism. There is a place to stand neither for one who wants 
to lift the world nor for one who wants to do anything else. 
We are all in Archimedes’ predicament — so runs the coun¬ 
sel of skepticism. 

It is heartening to laymen to discover that competent logi¬ 
cians regard such reasoning as the common enemy and sub¬ 
merge their differences for the time being to fall upon it with 
one accord, though from different angles and with different 
weapons. All insist that probability cannot be equated with 
skepticism because probability has a place on which to stand, 
a foothold, a point of departure. The theory of probability 
as developed by Keynes and Broad derives its nonskeptical 
character from an assumption as to the “ limited variety ” 13 
in the nature of things. Morris Cohen 14 is in partial agree¬ 
ment with this in his emphasis upon the “ assumption of 
homogeneity ” which underlies inductive inference. C. W. 
Morris is dubious about the inductive hypotheses just men¬ 
tioned but feels that there is a method by which the truth 
value of a probability can be reached: “ The probability of a 
proposition or argument being true on the next step is, on the 
simplest version of the frequency theory, the proportion of 
times the proposition has been true or the argument success¬ 
ful in the past.” 15 

Dr. C. I. Lewis, in his Mind and the World Order, defends 
probability against the charge of skepticism by analyzing the 
basis of David Hume’s skepticism regarding causal relation- 

13 Keynes, op. cit., pp. 258 ff.; Broad, loc. cit., XXIX, 42 f. 

14 Op. cit., p. 116. 

15 Unpublished class lectures, 1933. In fairness to Dr. Morris we should not 
regard this statement as more than a clue to his carefully formulated thought on 
the meaning of probability. 


The Nature of Probability 


77 

ships. Hume held that we never see a “ cause ” or vital inter¬ 
relationship. All we see is a series of events. Any kind of 
connecting link is attributable to our “ tendency to feign.” 
Lewis feels that Hume’s skepticism must be applied with 
equal severity to the much more fundamental problem of the 
recognition of objects. Unless Hume is prepared to be skep¬ 
tical about the existence of objects, he has no warrant for be¬ 
ing dubious about causal relations among objects. Since 
Hume accepts the recognition of objects but denies validity to 
statements as to their interrelations, he is inconsistent. Lewis 
insists that the principle in both cases is identical. 16 Hence 
only one who is prepared to lapse into solipsism can be con¬ 
sistently skeptical. Lewis constructs his entire theory of 
knowledge upon the principle involved in the recognition of 
objects and its extension to the interrelations among them. 

Logicians, then, agree that probability is different not in 
degree but in kind from skepticism. Stated positively, there 
is some truth value, a definite reliability, in every valid prob¬ 
ability. How much, whether measurable — these and other 
related questions are bitterly disputed. 

A probable truth indicates a general direction to be taken 
rather than a detailed chart of what occupies each foot of 
the way. Its value derives equally from the comprehensive¬ 
ness of past experience of a relevant sort and from the logical 
integrity of the process by which it is brought to bear upon a 
particular problem. It is not inerrant. “ Probability begins 
and ends as probability. . . . The importance of probability 
can only be derived from the judgment that it is rational to be 
guided by it in action; and a practical dependence on it can 
only be justified by a judgment that in action we ought to 
take some account of it.” 17 


16 Op . cit ., p. 354. 


17 Keynes, op . cit ., pp. 322 ff. 


VI 


THE NATURE OF CONTINGENCY 

W HEREAS probability is characteristic of empiri¬ 
cal knowledge, contingency describes one aspect 
of empirical reality, i.e., the world disclosed and 
described by empirical knowledge. It is synonymous with 
chance, which Professor Spaulding interprets as the “ab¬ 
sence of both necessity or impossibility.” 1 A tragic and con¬ 
crete example of this is the act which precipitated the World 
War. Granted that secret treaty alliances and armament ac¬ 
tivities had laid a powder train all over Europe, it is none 
the less a contingent (chance) fact that the assassination of 
an Austrian archduke was to explode it. The war did not 
follow this occurrence through any necessity. Any one of 
a hundred other events might have lighted the holocaust. It 
is conceivable that this one might have been dealt with, as 
had many others, so as to avert war. Hence we see that no 
necessity attaches to the relationship. Neither was this re¬ 
lationship impossible, for, obviously, the war did follow the 
murder. So when any empirical causal relationship is nei¬ 
ther necessary nor impossible, it is contingent in precisely 
this sense. 

But the ancient objection to the notion of contingency 
must be stated and dealt with. It is to the effect that what 
we mean by contingency is really human ignorance hyposta- 

1 E. G. Spaulding, A World of Chance (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1936), 
p. vii. 


78 


The Nature of Contingency 79 

tized and predicated to the universe as a whole. It is argued 
that contingency is relative to nature as grasped by the human 
mind, and that it is just possible that, could we but penetrate 
to her heart, nature is not characterized by chance happen¬ 
ings such as those implied in the notion of objective inde¬ 
terminism. Whatever truth there is in the notion of con¬ 
tingency can be attributed to human ignorance. 

This point of view cannot be dismissed simply because it 
is usually advanced by persons who want to “ tack down all 
the loose edges of their world.” They desire certain causal 
relationships in all things. They prefer a determinism (the 
kind, whether spiritual or material, does not matter) to the 
notion of contingency. Nor does it adequately meet the 
point to grant that every method we have for approaching 
nature has its limitations and that, admittedly, these limita¬ 
tions must be reckoned with in every estimate we make of 
nature. The only nature we shall ever know is that which 
is “ infected ” with human limitations. Thus to reason is 
to dodge rather than meet the argument that contingency 
is tantamount to ignorance. But there is a positive basis in 
good evidence for believing in the reality of objective inde¬ 
terminism. It can be stated in trenchant terms. Contin¬ 
gency derives from what we do know rather than from 
what we do not know. It is not a specter arising from the 
abyss which yawns between facts but an inseparable com¬ 
panion of the facts themselves. 2 Contingency is best attested 
where our knowledge is most secure. Three related yet sepa¬ 
rable considerations point the way to the doctrine of con¬ 
tingency: (1) an analysis of the fact of knowing, (2) the 
method of knowing, and (3) empirical reality as known. 

2 Cf. Paul Tillich, The Interpretation of History (New York: Charles Scrib¬ 
ner’s Sons, 1936), pp. 270-71. 


8o 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 


THE FACT OF KNOWING 

At first reading this section may seem to support the no¬ 
tion that contingency is another name for ignorance, but 
the careful reader will readily detect the fact that a much 
more comprehensive point is being made, namely, that 
knowledge is always relative to the observer or the knower. 
This is simply an application of the principle of relativity 
to the fact of knowing. It would be accepted as a truism to 
assert that objects are discovered in relation to other objects 
and never in isolation. But what will not be accepted as 
truistic is the inevitable development of this position implied 
in the assertion that knowledge of objects is as revelatory of 
the knower as of the known. Yet this is the meaning of both 
Heisenberg’s “ principle of indeterminacy ” and Mead’s no¬ 
tion of “ objective perspective.” 

John Dewey translates Heisenberg’s famous principle into 
this somewhat more readable statement: “ Heisenberg’s prin¬ 
ciple compels a recognition of the fact that interaction pre¬ 
vents an accurate measurement of velocity and position for 
any body, the demonstration centering about the roles of the 
interaction of the observer in determining what actually hap¬ 
pens. ... He [Heisenberg] showed that if we fix, metri¬ 
cally, velocity, then there is a range of indeterminateness in 
the assignment of position, and vice versa. When one is 
fixed, the other is defined only within a specified limit of 
probability. The element of indeterminateness is not con¬ 
nected with defect in the method of observation but is in¬ 
trinsic. The particle observed does not have fixed position 
or velocity, for it is changing all the time because of inter¬ 
action. ...” 3 

z The Quest for Certainty, p. 202. Cf. Spaulding, op. cit., pp. 204 ff., for an¬ 
other exposition of this principle. 


The Nature of Contingency 8i 

Dewey feels that there are three important philosophic 
implications in this principle: (i) “ What is known is seen 
to be a product in which the act of observation plays a neces¬ 
sary role. Knowing is seen to be a participant in what is 
finally known.” 4 (2) “The metaphysics of existence as 

something fixed and therefore capable of literally exact mathe¬ 
matical description and prediction is undermined.” 6 (3) Sci¬ 
entific laws become “ formulae for the prediction of the proba¬ 
bility of an observable occurrence.” 6 

Mead’s notion of “ objective perspective ” 7 makes a similar 
assertion about the fact of knowing, though based upon the 
facts of social rather than physical science. He begins by 
describing knowledge as a product of a consentient set, which 
simply means an object or event viewed from a certain per¬ 
spective. One of the attributes of consciousness and mind 
is the ability both to attempt to view the world from some¬ 
one else’s consentient set (which can only be by means of 
an imaginative leap) and to invite others to attempt to see 
the world as we see it. This endeavor aims to build up an 
objective perspective, i.e., system of consentient sets. The 
ancient poem about the six blind men of Hindustani and the 
elephant is a rough illustration of the point. Each had his 
own experience, hence his own view, of what the elephant 
was like: leaf, snake, rope, wall, pillar, spear. Each was wise 
in believing that his was a correct impression. Each was 
wrong in insisting that his was the correct impression. What 
was needed, instead of loud dispute, was the effort to experi¬ 
ence the elephant from the other five “ consentient sets.” 

4 Op. cit., p. 204. 

5 Ibid., p. 204. 

6 Ibid., p. 206. 

7 G. H. Mead, The Philosophy of the Present (Chicago: Open Court Publish¬ 
ing Co., 1932), pp. 161 ff. 


82 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

This would have resulted in the construction of an objective 
perspective of the elephant which would have included the 
truth in the assertion of each blind man. 

Professor C. I. Lewis reinforces this interpretation of the 
knowing situation in a chapter entitled “ The Relativity of 
Knowledge.” 8 He reaches three important conclusions: 

(1) Knowledge is relative to an actual or possible mind. 

(2) Knowledge of reality can be stated only in relative terms, 
i.e., in terms of the variables involved in the knowing act. 

(3) If propositions incorporating the relative terms (each 
blind man’s perspective, for example) are validly drawn, 
they are absolutely rather than relatively true of reality. But 
this is not tantamount to saying that any array of such propo¬ 
sitions is exhaustive of reality. Hence what we call knowl¬ 
edge is and must remain partial, though it may be true to 
the nature of reality in so far as reality has swung into the 
ken of human experience. 

I have given this much space to a summary of the technical 
appraisals of the fact of knowing because of its profound 
implications for the doctrine of contingency. The element 
of contingency suggested throughout derives not so much 
from the limitations of human knowing as from the relativis¬ 
tic character of reality as a whole. Hence it is as inept to 
decry the partial character of knowledge as it is to lament 
the relativistic nature of reality. The former is an instance 
of the latter. 


THE METHOD OF KNOWING 

Few persons are prepared to deny the assertion that the 
most reliable method we have for dealing with empirical 
reality is that of science. Critics may disagree as to some 

8 Mind and the World Order, chap. 6. 


The Nature of Contingency 83 

details of it; it may be defined so narrowly as to describe 
only the physical sciences and rule out as nonscientific social 
studies however carefully performed. But all are agreed on 
its basic characteristic, observation and reason — observation 
of facts in order to discover their “ nature,” i.e., character¬ 
istics which they always exhibit; reason or a determined ef¬ 
fort to locate this nature in a system of laws or interrelation¬ 
ships with other and known phenomena. As Cohen points 
out, the method thrives by cultivating doubts as to the ac¬ 
curacy of its conclusions. 9 It exploits exceptions to the rule 
in order to discover a stronger rule. It aims to reduce chance 
to the minimum; its archenemy in the realm of theory is the 
conception of caprice in nature. Therefore it is usually re¬ 
garded as the implacable foe of the notion of contingency. 

This method is the nerve of scientific procedure. Yet, 
upon analysis, even it testifies to the reality of contingency 
or chance in empirical reality. This it does in several ways. 10 
In the first place, the method of science does not create the 
facts with which it works. It discovers them and prides 
itself upon the fact. But the facts are there prior to the ap¬ 
plication of the method and they are in an ordered arrange¬ 
ment rather than a hodgepodge. Why should they be there ? 
Whence did they come? Why that order rather than an¬ 
other or none at all ? These questions point to an aspect of 
empirical reality which is as real as discovered data, and 
the method of science accepts it for what it is. Simply to 
say that science cannot account for the existence of data does 
not demonstrate the positive point that contingency is an 
operative factor in their reality. But it does point out all 
that is intended, namely, that the most exact method we 
have for discovering the reason (order) in things must ac- 

9 Reason and Nature, p. 85. 10 Ibid., pp. 151 ff. 


84 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

cept them for what they are. We shall presently see how 
Emile Boutroux uses this fact to pave the way to a sweeping 
assertion about the ultimately contingent character of natural 
laws. 

The second aspect of scientific method which smacks of 
contingency is the run of interest or attention in the observer 
which defines the general area of fact or delimits the field 
within which the solution of the problem lies. In an earlier 
chapter I have tried to describe the problem solving situation 
and to point out that the problem up for solution determines 
what facts are to be accepted or rejected at any given time. 
That one problem rather than another is controlling observa¬ 
tion and reason must be accepted as a contingent fact. True 
enough, problems grow, as a rule, but even so that they 
should come to a head in our consciousness under certain 
specific circumstances is as contingent a fact as is that of the 
assassination of Ferdinand precipitating the war. 

A third type of contingency is found in the general notion 
of irrelevance. Facts which apparently have no relation to 
the problem are dismissed as irrelevant. Just what does this 
mean? And what is their status in the investigation from 
which they have been ruled out ? It is common knowledge 
that not only great detectives but also great scientists have 
paid strict attention to some of the admittedly irrelevant 
facts. Pasteur is an excellent example of this. His researches 
on the possibility that air might be the carrier of bacteria is 
only one of many such instances of his scrupulous regard 
for neglected areas of fact. The real significance of irrele¬ 
vance for our present purpose is that it is essential to scientific 
method, which is an exact pursuit along carefully mapped- 
out lines. Scientific method is an abstracting procedure in 
that it admits some and rejects most facts on the criterion of 


The Nature of Contingency 85 

relevance. Uneliminable contingency or chance dogs this 
procedure. True, scientific method will remedy it if it is 
remedied; witness the case of Pasteur. None the less in 
terms of any given problem chance is an ineradicable factor. 

Another place in the method of science where contingency 
plays a part is in the moment of discovery. Nor am I, in 
saying this, forgetting that any significant discovery is based 
upon profound, comprehensive and rationally rigorous prep¬ 
aration. But I am indicating something well grounded in 
fact when I say that the occurrence of many discoveries when 
and where they did occur transcends the rational processes. 
Take, as example, Lord Hamilton’s discovery of a complex 
mathematical law when he was on a leisurely walk. Or 
Newton’s discovery of the law of gravitation. Both men 
immediately verified their hunches or intuitions by relating 
them to accepted bodies of theory and fact, but this in no 
way militates against the reality of chance in the moment of 
discovery. 11 This will be discussed further in the ensuing 
section under the broader notion of emergence, in which 
contingency plays a vital role. 

Thus we see that contingency characterizes our most cer¬ 
tain knowledge and our most reliable method for securing 
it. This being true it would seem to be the part of philo¬ 
sophic wisdom to desist from forcing the notion of contin¬ 
gency to bootleg its meanings under the spurious label of 
ignorance and to give it a license to operate in a respectable 
manner. This is precisely what a strong movement in con¬ 
temporary philosophy is doing when it emphasizes the con¬ 
tingent character of empirical reality. 

11 A. D. Ritchie, Scientific Method (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1923), 
pp. 53 “Induction is an art.” 


86 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 


EMPIRICAL REALITY AS KNOWN 

The past three centuries have seen a wealth of information 
about our universe poured out before us by the sciences. 
Philosophers have been alternately bewildered by the com¬ 
plexity of the offering and busily engaged in piecing to¬ 
gether some sort of picture of the whole. It is therefore 
highly pertinent to our discussion to note that almost every 
great philosophical system since the beginning of the nine¬ 
teenth century has allowed ample room for the notion of 
contingency in its formulation of the nature of existence. 
It may prove helpful briefly to sketch several such, empha¬ 
sizing only those aspects which argue for the reality of con¬ 
tingency or objective indeterminism. 

One such is the voluntarism of Schopenhauer in whose 
thought reality is a blind surging will to create — something 
like a blind painter who daubs at a canvas which he cannot 
see with paints that he himself has mixed. Historically, this 
view represents a reaction from the lopsided rationalistic 
determinism of Spinoza and Hegel in whose thought there 
is always prevision of ends, if not with man, then with God. 
Schopenhauer’s universe is one in which contingency runs 
amuck. 

The pluralism of William James is an open and stubborn 
avowal that reality is not one but many; not unified but di¬ 
versified; not controlled by an all-inclusive purpose, but the 
battleground for varieties of purposes. James’s thought re¬ 
flects all too clearly the close of the day of romanticizing the 
enormous loss and wastage of evolution, the bitter reality 
of class struggle, and the anguish of personal conflict. For 
him, the significance of moral choices depended upon the 
fact of contingency in the universe because of which loss 


The Nature of Contingency 87 

and gain were real and gain was not always vouchsafed him 
who did his best to choose wisely. This train of reflections 
is a direct reaction to and repudiation of European and Amer¬ 
ican idealism, which always managed somehow or other to 
rule chance out of their universes. 

The vitalism of Henri Bergson contains one of the most 
trenchant statements of contingency. In fact, taken as a 
whole, the notion of objective indeterminism plays a larger 
role in it than in any other contemporary system of thought. 
For Bergson, scientific, rational knowledge is an abstraction 
from the full flow of reality. The total thrust of rational 
knowledge is to create a schematization of empirical phe¬ 
nomena sufficiently deterministic to make those reliable pre¬ 
dictions that are essential to practical actions. Within this 
construct there is no room for contingency, and no wonder, 
since it is set up with chance as its main antagonist. But 
such knowledge cannot pretend to describe reality as a whole, 
which is essentially indeterministic. Bergson’s famous phrase 
elan vital is the key to its character. It resembles Schopen¬ 
hauer’s creative activity though it is much more friendly to 
the notion of universal design. It is important to remember 
that, for Bergson, the universal flow is genuine creativity, 
rather than an unfolding of a predetermined purpose. 

One of Bergson’s older contemporaries was Emile Bou- 
troux. To him we are indebted for one of the earliest attacks 
on the notion of natural law. His famous doctoral disserta¬ 
tion dealt with the contingency of natural laws. 12 He did 
not deny the existence of such laws but he did point out that 
no sound reason can be given for their nature. They might 
just as well have been of quite a different character. For 

12 The Contingency of Natural Laws (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 
1920). 


88 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

example, can anyone give a logically valid reason why the 
natural laws found by Alice in Wonderland should not ob¬ 
tain in our universe ? That they do not is obvious, but is it 
as obvious that they could not? To reason from the exist¬ 
ence of our set of natural laws to the position that they alone 
are possible is obviously fallacious. The most that can be 
said in this direction is to point out that the present system 
of causal relationships was one of perhaps several possible 
sets and is the one that came to be characteristic of empirical 
reality. What Boutroux was saying may be illustrated by 
some such example as this: We have a fertile plot of ground, 
favorably located climatically. We have in our hands two 
seeds, an acorn and a squash. If we plant the acorn, the 
potentialities of the soil and climate express themselves 
through the deterministic mechanism of the oak. If we had 
dropped the squash seed, the results would have been quite 
different. While we would have reasons for dropping one 
rather than the other, the potentialities of the environment 
were ready to respond to either. Just so, existence, the world 
of empirical phenomena, might have been dominated by an 
entirely different set of natural laws. 

Nor has this point of Boutroux’s languished unnoticed. 
Challenging as it did both materialistic and spiritualistic de¬ 
terminism, it came as a shock to science and religion alike. 
It was a frank denial of their endeavors, not alone to describe 
phenomena, but also to show why it is inevitable that they 
should be that way. The classical notion of God as Uncaused 
Cause, First Cause, was no more and certainly no less se¬ 
verely shaken than Spinoza’s substance and the French ma¬ 
terialists’ notion of universal law. No one has yet met Bou¬ 
troux’s main thesis, which is an out-and-out affirmation of 
the reality of contingency precisely in that area of empirical 


The Nature of Contingency 89 

phenomena where one would be least likely to look for it — 
its laws. 

E. G. Spaulding is in complete agreement with Boutroux’s 
fundamental contention. “ Instances of necessity, i.e., lim¬ 
ited ‘ fields * or realms with which there are ‘ connections ’ 
that are characterized by necessity, I do find, but that the 
‘ occurrence ’ itself of such fields is necessitated, or that there 
are necessary connections between these ‘fields/ I do not 
find.” 13 While Morris Cohen is of the same opinion, 14 he 
proceeds to apply the principle of polarity and thereby bal¬ 
ances the irrational or contingent aspect of the universe with 
the rational and determinate characteristics. This gives him 
a much firmer grasp on the possibility of solution. In sum¬ 
marizing this chapter we shall make more of this observation. 
Just now we must get a glimpse of the meaning of contin¬ 
gency in connection with the widespread notion of emergence 
and novelty. 

Professor A. N. Whitehead’s comprehensive philosophy 
makes much of the indeterminateness of the future: that is, 
what is future is really future, hence unactualized. Any 
given event is a cluster of potentialities, some of which will 
be actualized in the form of some succeeding present. Move¬ 
ment from the past through the present into the future is 
real, but the precise nature of that future is strictly indetermi¬ 
nate prior to its crystallization in a concrete present. Obvi¬ 
ously the doctrine of contingency can and does loom large 
at this juncture in Professor Whitehead’s thought. Just why 
and the extent to which some possibilities are realized is not 
determinable either ahead of time or with completeness 

13 Spaulding, op. cit., pp. v, 104 ff. Cf. also Stebbings, Introduction to Logic, 
p. 201: “ The system of the actual world cannot be logically necessary, and anything 
that is the case might have been other than it is.” (Quoted by Spaulding, p. 86.) 

14 Op. cit., pp. 151-52. 


90 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

afterward. That some possibilities rather than others have 
become concrete presents is a fact, but why some rather than 
others cannot be determined in advance of the fact because 
the very nature of the fact is as yet indeterminate. 

George Herbert Mead’s provocative discussion of “ an 
emergent” and “the present” deserves careful considera¬ 
tion at this point in our discussion. For him not only the 
future but also the past is contingent. 

By an emergent or a present Mead means a novel event, 
one that is recognizably different from something else. 
Change is incontestably operative in the emergence of a 
present. New factors are there too or it would be indistin¬ 
guishable from the preceding present. An example might 
be selected from any field, since for Mead any object, fact or 
sensation constitutes a present. The emergence of a new 
structure in biology as mutation, or in the mind as a gripping 
idea, or in religion as conversion, one and all illustrate what 
is meant by a present. Although difficulties in exposition 
are greater when one attempts a complicated illustration, the 
victory, if won, is of greater value to the understanding both 
of the immediate and of the broader problem. Before invok¬ 
ing an incident from the life of Paul to clarify the meaning 
of an emergent, it will be well for us to set up a general 
logical device or diagram by which the explanation will pro¬ 
ceed (which diagram can be used to fit any other present). 

The diagram: Suppose we wish to understand present X. 
Upon analysis of it (X), we discover that processes A, B, and 
C were responsible for its creation as emergent. Hence the 
past of X is A, B, and C. Let us now suppose that an emer¬ 
gence occurs by virtue of which X is transformed into Y. 
Now we have an emergent, a new present, a novelty, which 
must be explained. It is obviously in error to reason that 


The Nature of Contingency 91 

A, B, and C condition Y in the same way that they condi¬ 
tioned X. If this were true, there would be no difference be¬ 
tween X and Y. But there is a novel element in Y that must 
be explained. Analysis of Y reveals that in addition to X 
(as emergent of A, B, and C) other factors, D, E, and F, are 
operative units in its past. Hence the past of Y is X, D, E, 
and F. But this past did not exist as fast prior to the emer¬ 
gence of Y. Mead is clear on this point: “ The past of an 
event is not just an antecedent present.” 15 

The concrete example: One of the emergents or presents 
in Paul’s life was his consuming hatred for the Christians 
which expressed itself in the zeal with which he persecuted 
them. Let this stand for the X in the preceding paragraph. 
Upon analysis of it we find certain definite factors which 
largely produced it: A — his Pharisaical training, stressing 
obedience to the Law as the way to righteousness; B — the 
social, political and religious situation at Jerusalem; and C — 
his own violent personal reaction to all who disagreed with 
him. Shortly after X became a fact it gave way to a second 
emergent, Y — Paul’s conversion to the Christian faith. Ob¬ 
viously this is a novelty, a present, which demands another 
explanation. It is radically different from X, yet obviously 
related to it. Analysis of Y reveals the fact that in addition 
to X (Paul’s hatred for Christians) certain other factors 
loom large in the emergent: D — Stephen’s martyrdom un¬ 
der the stones cast by the mob led by Paul; E — a brooding 
over the fact of sin which all his zeal in good works could 
neither erase nor lessen; and F — the faith of Christians not 
only that Jesus provides release from sin but also that he 
fulfills and supplants the Law as the way of righteousness. 
Hence the past of Y is X, D, E, and F. Relative to this and 

15 Op. cit., pp. xvii, 13. 


92 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

every other complex present or emergent, conditioning fac¬ 
tors may be added or subtracted, with adequate cause, with¬ 
out invalidating the general tenor of the argument or modi¬ 
fying the conclusions. 

Both the logical diagram and the concrete example lead, 
upon reflection, to some significant considerations: (i) Any 
given present at one and the same time exemplifies scientific 
determinism, yet is a novelty, an emergent. It is an ex¬ 
ample of scientific determinism, because, ideally at least, 
it lends itself to complete explanation in terms of law. But 
— and this is its novelty — the character of its determinism 
is its own. That is to say, these factors were not operative 
in any prior present; there is no place other than this emer¬ 
gent where they are found in this combination. “ The de¬ 
terminism then holds of the past implied in any present, the 
emergence in the relation of one such present, with its past, 
to another.” 16 

(2) Science is related to an emergent in two ways. First, 
it cannot predict an emergent prior to its emergence in the 
form of a present. Second, once an emergent is actualized, 
science can measure it, analyze it into its component parts, 
or describe its meanings until we feel familiar with it. The 
purpose of science’s endeavor is to enable it to “ previse the 
future.” 17 

Parenthetically, one of Mead’s unresolved difficulties en¬ 
ters precisely at this juncture. For how can the future emer¬ 
gent be “ prevised ” by any knowledge of the past, however 
complete? No amount of knowledge of X in Paul’s case 
would have enabled one to predict Y, and for exactly the 
reason assigned by Mead, namely, the insertion of new fac¬ 
tors into the situation, which coalesced with X to produce Y. 

16 Ibid., p. xviii. 17 Ibid., p. 331. 


The Nature of Contingency 93 

The solution to this perplexity is, it seems to me, suggested 
by Morris Cohen’s rigorous use of the principle of polarity 
when dealing with the problem of constancy and change. 
For him, there is a persistence of invariant relations and ra¬ 
tional structure together with profound modifications in the 
character of details throughout the chain of emergents. 
Cohen likewise insists that scientific method is successful 
precisely because it both assumes this and is a self-correcting 
system of revealing with increasing accuracy the nature of 
this underlying structure. Although Mead would be prompt 
to dismiss the suggestion as “rationalistic metaphysics” I 
am of the opinion that it has definite bearing on his thought. 
The matter might be summarized this way: There are neces¬ 
sary relations which run through past, present and future; 
such relations rise to the surface or become concreted in pres¬ 
ents; it is the task of science to discover these relations and 
to trace them backward in the conviction that a better un¬ 
derstanding of their nature yields a more valid prediction 
of the future. Only upon some such basis can science be at 
all relevant to the future. 

Even with this modification Mead continues to be the 
most careful analyst of the meaning of “ emergent.” It is, 
therefore, in order to summarize his conclusions and relate 
them to the notion of contingency. 

(1) Two strains of influence enter into the structure of 
any emergent. One is the preceding present with a fixed 
character by virtue of which it was itself known as an emer¬ 
gent. Hence this deterministic system of factors enters as 
a certain, predictable, known factor into the construction of 
its successor. Naturally all thought of time and space would 
vanish and the Parmenidean One would be accepted as de¬ 
scriptive of reality if the preceding present were the only 


94 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

source of conditioning, since all emergents would be alike, 
hence indistinguishable. 

But another set of factors streams in from an utterly un¬ 
predictable angle and exerts an unpredictable influence on 
the emerging present. Why they should come, we have no 
way of knowing. Nor do we know that they have come, 
much less what they are, until the present which they condi¬ 
tion becomes a full-blown emergent. Then we can ferret 
out its component parts and separate the two strains of con¬ 
ditioning which comprise it. 

Two corollaries ensue. One is that the past is contingent. 
What the past of a given present is, science can determine to 
some degree — ideally, of course, completely. But what the 
nature of this past (that of Y, for example) was while the 
preceding present (X) with its past held sway, not even om¬ 
niscience could determine. And that because of the plain 
fact that the component parts of any past are indecipherable 
until the present they condition has emerged and has thereby 
incorporated them into a substance or event with definite 
structure. 

The second corollary is that the future is contingent. 
Just what factors will impinge upon the structure of the 
present to produce an emergent is indeterminate. Certain 
is it that each emergent derives its uniqueness from contin¬ 
gent factors. Science may know with meticulous accuracy 
the laws and relations which dominate each present and 
which enter into the conditioning of the future, yet not be 
able to predict with more than statistical accuracy the char¬ 
acter and direction of the future, because the unique, hence 
deterministic, features in the new structure derive from un¬ 
predictable sources. 18 

18 Cf. Cohen, op. cit., p. 137. 


The Nature of Contingency 95 

(2) The emergent quality of the universe confronts sci¬ 
ence with uneliminable contingency because the laws which 
characterize any present emergent will be revised in un¬ 
known and unknowable ways when the future emergent ar¬ 
rives. Let us be clear about this point: The laws of the past 
present are not scrapped with the passing of their present. 
Rather they are modified by and adjusted to the new factors. 
But science must build upon the assumption of change as 
well as of uniformity. There is no way to insure the per¬ 
manency of the structure of any present. If what is recorded 
in the history of science is a reliable index as to the nature 
of scientific laws, they are in process of continual restatement 
due to the contingent character of past and future alike. To 
reason thus is not to impugn the validity of science as the 
most accurate way to know the present and to construct its 
past. Nor is it to argue that there is any other and more 
reliable way to previse the future. If this could be done, 
scientific method would do it because such prevision rests 
on knowledge of continuing laws and relations, and science 
is our most trustworthy way of knowing and applying 
these. But neither science nor any other enterprise can con¬ 
trol either the nature or the results of the contingent factors 
which are as characteristic of empirical reality as are struc¬ 
tured relations. William James’s dream of a wide-open 
world has come true in Mead’s philosophy of the present. 

SUMMARY 

Contingency is a real factor in empirical reality. But con¬ 
tingency alone is meaningless. Pure chaos would not call 
attention to itself. Contingency has significance only when 
viewed as the polar opposite of determinism. Both are 
equally true aspects of empirical reality. Determinism, 


96 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

alone, is as useless a concept as contingency taken by itself. 
One cannot be explained or understood without the other, 
yet they sustain a contradictory, at least a paradoxical rela¬ 
tionship to each other. 

When Bergson and Spaulding would make contingency 
more fundamental than determinate order it seems to me 
they are in error. Each admits that both concepts are de¬ 
scriptive of portions of reality, yet for specific reasons argues 
for the ultimacy of contingency. Whereas their arguments 
for the reality of contingency derive from empirical reality, 
their reasons for the ultimacy of contingency are drawn from 
some area, either intuitional or logical, outside of empirical 
fact. 

Cohen balances the irrational or contingent aspects of ex¬ 
istence with the rational. Both are valid as description and, 
so far as we know, are ultimate categories. Mead balances 
contingency or unpredictability with determinism or rational 
order, regarding them as of equal value and validity. 

Therefore, I am of the opinion that any discipline, whether 
art, science or religion, purporting to appreciate, discover or 
describe certain aspects of the world of facts, must keep a 
careful eye on the fact of contingency. To be obsessed by it 
is to lose all notion of purpose and to cling to the specious 
moment which willy-nilly fades away; to ignore it is to hy- 
postatize purposes into an all-inclusive Purpose and eventu¬ 
ally to crystallize it into a comforting dogmatism. 

Tentativeness, as I have indicated, is enforced open-mind¬ 
edness. Whether we like it or not we are part and parcel 
of a universe which is not of a single piece. Echoes of cosmic 
strife are continually borne to listening ears. We frequently 
feel the struggle within ourselves, agreeing with Paul that 


The Nature of Contingency 


97 

ours is a “ living death.” What the larger implications for 
religion are remains to be considered. Just now it is sufficient 
to say that our universe has at work in it an element of real 
chance which is attested by what we know rather than by 
what we do not know. 


vn 


SCIENTIFIC HYPOTHESIS AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF 

T HERE ARE not wanting those that might agree that 
tentativeness is indispensable to scientific method, 
yet categorically deny that it has any place in reli¬ 
gious belief. And the precise reason for this discrimination 
is not hard to find: an unbridgeable chasm yawns between 
a scientific hypothesis and a religious belief. They are differ¬ 
ent not merely in degree, as I have implied, but actually in 
kind. Upholders of this point of view have advanced several 
types of distinctions which are important because they are 
instructive of the nature of the most widely used solution of 
the conflict between science and religion. I propose to state 
and enlarge upon two such attempts at division of labor be¬ 
tween these two great disciplines. 

It is argued that science and religion deal with different 
though related problems. Scientific hypothesis deals with 
the detailed circumference problems of life; religious belief 
dwells in the center of the life enterprise. Religion is the 
custodian of purpose, immediate and pluralized as well as 
ultimate and unified. It aims to provide a perspective on 
life in toto and cannot fairly be broken up into segments. 
The reverse is true of science; it proceeds by division and 
subdivision of problems which, though broad in scope at 
the outset, are solved, if solved, by a multitude of investi¬ 
gations of isolated problems. Cancer is a tragic human prob¬ 
lem and is all too broad in scope. Scientists the world over 

98 


Scientific Hypothesis and Religious Belief 99 

are attacking it by means of every conceivable approach — 
some via heredity, others through food, still others through 
infection and injury. Few scenes fill one with greater re¬ 
spect for the potentialities of the human race than these 
tens of thousands of persons in laboratories throughout the 
world studying the cells and tissues of rats, rabbits and men. 
If the problem of cancer is ever solved it will be through 
such patient detailed investigations to which tentativeness 
is life itself because their scientific hypotheses must be mobile. 

But cancer does not affect human life simply as a physio¬ 
logical phenomenon which can be analyzed and attacked 
piecemeal. It likewise strikes life as a whole, necessitates a 
rearrangement of the total enterprise — in short, induces suf¬ 
fering. The problem of suffering is distinctly a religious one. 
True, the causes of suffering, if organic, may be understood 
by scientific procedure; but the agony of life as a whole is 
an inevitable result, and in our present world there is an 
abundance of it owing to social as well as organic causes, 
and religion alone attempts to minister to those who bear it. 
Some religions counsel escape from it, either by denying its 
reality as Christian Science does or by advising the trans¬ 
ferring of all one’s affections to life after death where peace 
alone will reign. Others urge men to bear up courageously, 
either in the name of posterity or because of a God who will 
not suffer men to be tempted beyond that which they can 
endure. Yet the central fact of suffering is this: it colors the 
whole of life whenever it is characteristic of life. It cannot 
be segregated. It infects purposes, desires and loyalties. Any 
attempt to deal with it in detail must recognize this inclusive 
nature. In other words, the problem of suffering is differ¬ 
ent in kind from the problem of cancer. Therefore any 
method of dealing with it must minister to the whole of it. 


ioo The Quest for Religious Certainty 

John Oman asserts that the nature of the reality to be 
investigated determines the character of the method to be 
employed. 1 If you are dealing with an aspect of reality, use 
science, but if you would learn of the whole, religion alone can 
aid you. Only the prevalence of some such attitude can ac¬ 
count for the fact which Whitehead calls to our attention, 
namely, that modification of a scientific theory is hailed as 
an advance in science, but a change in religious belief be¬ 
tokens a reverse for religion. 2 

Professor W. H. Bernhardt has recently given this general 
outlook a new and significant phrasing. Scientific hypoth¬ 
esis, he urges, deals with manipulate materials; religious 
belief is concerned with nonmanipulable problems. Religion 
deals with the crises of life which come whether or no. Sci¬ 
entific method is useless when confronted by the problem of 
death. Yet religion must have a message for this and other 
extremities of the human spirit. Therefore, science can pro¬ 
ceed by rational hypothecation and verification, whereas re¬ 
ligion is animated by intuitions born of faith, which, for all 
its definite historical background, never loses its genius as 
essentially faith, that is, confidence in conclusions derived 
from intuition rather than from scientific method. 3 

Another attempt to reconcile science and religion by sepa¬ 
rating responsibility holds that scientific hypothesis and re¬ 
ligious belief are different in that they travel different roads 
to truth. Whereas the former uses cultivation of doubt to 
secure greater truth, the latter uses an act of faith. Scientific 
hypothesis utilizes the logical structure of doubt, the “if- 

1 Natural and Supernatural, pp. 108 ff. 

2 Science and the Modern World (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1923), pp. 
270 f. 

8 W. H. Bernhardt, “ The Significance of the Changing Function of Religion,” 
Journal of Religion, Oct., 1932, pp. 556 ff. 


Scientific Hypothesis and Religious Belief ioi 

then” framework. The most it can ever affirm is that if 
this is so, then something else follows. Religious belief, 
on the other hand, proceeds by the attitude of acceptance 
through faith alone, epitomized by the famous passage, 
“ Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” In these days 
we are prone to laugh at the credo quia absurdum of the 
Schoolmen; yet they were only recognizing the logical ex¬ 
tremity to which reliance upon faith is inevitably driven. 
While we no longer say, “ I believe that which is absurd,” 
many widely held religious beliefs prove that we actually do 
believe something very like it. 

Another way to put the dilemma is this: Science stakes its 
existence upon the ability and validity of observation and 
reason to reach truth or to come as near reaching it as is 
humanly possible in this world of change. Religion need 
not oppose reason, may even embrace it, but never wholly 
places its fundamental beliefs under reason’s care, for their 
trusted guardian is faith born of authority of some kind or 
other. There are some things we simply cannot reason about 
with profit because the facts which reason demands are lack¬ 
ing, yet these matters are too important to pass by without 
an affirmation. Therefore, say many, religious belief born 
of faith not only is necessary but is likewise competent to 
supply the desired affirmations. Professor D. C. Macintosh 
argues with clarity and cogency that we are entitled to be¬ 
lieve as true all that is essential to moral action. 4 

It is patent that we must determine, if possible, the nature 
of religious belief before we can fairly and with profit in¬ 
sist that tentativeness is as germane to it as to scientific hy¬ 
pothesis. John Dewey sounds the keynote of our venture 

4 The Reasonableness of Christianity (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 
1925). 


102 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

when he asserts that one of the two burning questions which 
modern liberalism in religion has not yet faced but must 
eventually face if it would clarify its position is: “ What is 
the place of belief in religion and by what methods is true 
belief achieved and tested ? ” 5 It is significant that all con¬ 
temporary attempts to answer this question proceed by 
way of contrasting religious belief with or relating it to sci¬ 
entific hypothesis. The four attempts which I am going to 
present have been selected because they are in some measure 
representative of contemporary movements of thought about 
and in religion. 

BELIEF AS REVELATION OF REALITY 

The precise status of belief in the family of possible rela¬ 
tions to an idea has always been elusive. The Council of 
Trent endeavored to fasten it down, and the dubious result 
appears in the definition: “ The word ‘ believe . . . does 
not here [Apostles’ Creed] mean ‘ to think,’ ‘ to imagine,’ 
‘ to be of opinion,’ but, as the Sacred Scriptures teach, it ex¬ 
presses the deepest conviction of the mind, by which we 
give a firm and unhesitating assent to God revealing his 
mysterious truths.” 6 

The great traditions in Protestantism and Catholicism 
agree that religious belief must be accepted as revelation of 
reality. 7 Revelation covers both the content and the method 
by which it is ascertained. Although there is wide disagree¬ 
ment as to the validity of different methods (church, Bible, 
mystical experience), all agree that the content of their par¬ 
ticular revelations is an accurate portrayal or description of 

5 Characters and Events, II, 458. 

6 Catechism of the Council of Trent (London: Keatings and Browne, 1829), 
p. 12. 

7 Cf. Chap. II. 


Scientific Hypothesis and Religious Belief 103 

reality — accurate in the sense that it cannot be improved 
upon; it is final truth. 

Sigmund Freud not only accepts this as the correct con¬ 
ception of religious belief but, with it as basis, proceeds to 
demonstrate that religion is an illusion. 8 We shall see that 
when one questions the validity of this conception of the 
nature of belief he has laid the ax at the roots of Freud’s 
polemic against religion. Consider his central thesis that 
religious doctrines (that which is believed') “ are all illusions, 
they do not admit of proof and no one can be compelled to 
consider them as true or to believe in them. Some of them 
are so improbable, so very incompatible with everything we 
have laboriously discovered about the reality of the world, 
that we may compare them — taking adequately into ac¬ 
count the psychological differences — to delusions. Of the 
reality value of most of them we cannot judge; just as they 
cannot be proved, neither can they be refuted.” 9 Religious 
beliefs originate in wishful thinking, in wanting something 
so badly that the very intensity of desire is construed to guar¬ 
antee its reality. They deal with the most profound puzzles 
which confront us, yet they claim to possess the solution. 
But beliefs do not remain in the thin air of speculation; they 
insert themselves in human lives not as hypotheses but as 
reliable predications of reality. They become part of a so¬ 
cial milieu and a historical tradition. They suffuse the cul¬ 
ture of whole civilizations with their ideology. They raise 
up a compact inner circle (church) which guards them from 
impious hands and calls all men to accept their light and 
leading. 

But—and this is the cutting edge of Freud’s case — re- 

8 The Future of an Illusion (London: Horace Liveright, 1928). 

9 Ibid., p. 55. 


104 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

ligious beliefs are incapable of rational, experimental testing. 
If you cannot accept them as true, bolstered as they are only 
by tradition and authority, then you will reject them as 
illusions. Now an “ illusion need not be necessarily false, 
that is to say, unrealizable or incompatible with reality.” 10 
But it is incapable of exact proof and for the most part is 
not approachable by scientific procedure. 11 It is patent that, 
in Freud’s thought, religious belief and any kind of investi¬ 
gation of reality are sworn enemies. Scientific belief has the 
whole truth or at least as much of it as is open to humanity. 
Religious belief is the creation of psychological compensa¬ 
tion and tradition and is the ward of authority. Its value and 
potency are directly proportionate to the blindness with 
which people accept its claim to revealed knowledge of re¬ 
ality. It can be neither proved nor disproved. It is above 
the canons by which proof and disproof operate. It is and 
must remain uncompromisingly opposed to any other effort 
to approach reality. Hence there is a conflict in which no 
quarter is desired between religious belief and the scientific 
attitude of investigation by experimentation. 

That this conception of belief is commonly held is attested 
by the widespread efforts to show by fair arguments or foul 
that there is no real conflict between what science finds and 
what religion teaches. It fits in with Whitehead’s observa¬ 
tion, previously mentioned, that modification of theories is 
a recognized essential to the growth of science while change 
in religious belief betokens another defeat for religion. This 
must remain true so long as the vitality of religious belief 
is dependent upon the inerrancy of its knowledge of reality. 
If religious belief is regarded as revelation of reality, there 

10 Ibid., p. 54. 11 Ibid., p. 94. 


Scientific Hypothesis and Religious Belief 105 

is no place in it for tentativeness, which religion is obliged 
to regard as an implacable enemy. 12 

Whereas Freud openly accepts the position that religious 
belief is antithetical to scientific procedure and decides against 
it on that basis, William Adams Brown endeavors to restore 
the prestige of religious belief by showing wherein it is 
similar to scientific procedure. He recognizes the fact, which 
seems not to have caught Freud’s attention, that religious 
beliefs wax and wane, grow and decay, live and die, much 
like scientific hypotheses. But through all these fluctuations 
of belief we clearly see certain fundamental postulates which 
do not change for either. The postulates of science, accord¬ 
ing to Dr. Brown, are “ that there is an order in nature which 
expresses the way in which things may be counted upon to 
happen; that man has capacity within limits to understand 
what that order is; and that scientific method is the way in 
which trustworthy knowledge of that order is to be gained.” 13 
The postulates or assumptions of religion are: “First . . . 
there is a moral and spiritual order which is no less real than 
the aspect of reality made known to us through the senses. 
... A second assumption is that the divine, which is also 
the excellent, has been made known to men in definite and 
recognizable ways so that we may be sure not only that deity 
exists but also within limits what it is like. ... A third as¬ 
sumption ... is that a trustworthy \nowledge of God is 
made possible to man by his capacity to act upon his ideals, 


12 D. E. Trueblood, The Spiritual Essence of Religion (New York: Harper & 
Bros., 1936), does not escape this fixity of belief by his notion of “continuous 
revelation.” Religious belief continues to have a superior ingress into the pro¬ 
fundities of reality and yields truths beyond testing. 

18 William Adams Brown /Pathways to Certainty, p. 206. 


io6 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

so that when he trusts and follows that which is most ex¬ 
cellent, he enters into communion with deity.” 14 

But these postulates alone do not satisfy religious cravings 
for specificity any more than those of science satisfy a multi¬ 
tude of concrete needs, i.e., need to know cause of diseases, 
depressions, etc. The thrust for a more exact and fuller 
knowledge takes the form of hypotheses for religion and 
science alike. Take, for example, the first postulate of re¬ 
ligion (which Dr. Brown equates with God) that there is 
a moral and spiritual order which is no less real than the 
aspect of reality made known to us through the senses. Hy¬ 
potheses as to the fuller nature of this order are necessary. 
Hence we have the several which underlie various religions 
such as Christianity, Buddhism and Mohammedanism. 
“ Our hypothesis concerning God defines that part of our 
thought about God which has not yet been completely veri¬ 
fied by experiment and which is therefore capable of pro¬ 
gressive redefinition.” 15 But you do not change or alter the 
postulate. That is fixed and certain. Whether or not a hy¬ 
pothesis is a reliable amplification is open to question; it 
must be held tentatively. The procedure by which verifica¬ 
tion takes place is that of experiment in daily living. 

Dr. Brown is frankly empirical in his statement that “ God 
is the subject of experiment in religion in the same sense in 
which nature is the subject of experiment in science. And 
as the hypotheses of the different sciences sum up our knowl¬ 
edge of nature to date and define the issues on which further 
inquiry is necessary, so the doctrines of religion sum up men’s 
experience of God up to date and define the issues on which 
further experiment is necessary.” 16 

Hence we see that the doctrines of religion, that beliefs 

14 Ibid., p. 209 (Brown’s italics). 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., p. 210. 


Scientific Hypothesis and Religious Belief 107 

about the postulate of God are as provisional as they are in¬ 
dispensable. This conception of religious belief might be 
accepted as openly friendly to the notion of tentativeness 
were it not for the steady tendency on Dr. Brown’s part to 
attribute the certainty due postulates to notions which defi¬ 
nitely are hypotheses and should be held tentatively . 17 For 
example, he urges that the faith of theistic religion is that 
there is a wiser mind and stronger will for good than ours 
at work in the universe . 18 In another connection he insists 
that this core of reality is “ akin to man though infinitely 
wiser and better.” 19 Now, by definition, these ought to be 
religious beliefs rather than postulates, held tentatively rather 
than certainly; they ought to be regarded as hypotheses 
which define the course of future experimentation and there¬ 
fore held tentatively until validated. But Dr. Brown regards 
them as certain truths. This continual and covert crowding 
of hypotheses or beliefs into postulates gives birth to the sus¬ 
picion that the line between them is not always evident. 
This is obviously the case in Dr. Brown’s summary rejection 
of the notion that the idea of tentativeness enters in any way 
into the relationship between the worshiper and his God. 
He quotes with disapproval E. A. Burtt’s notion that one 
ought to be tentative about “ even the noblest ideas and the 
most appealing emotions that come to [him] from [his] 
own particular heritage,” and H. N. Wieman when he writes 
that “ the apologist for religion should present all our most 
sacred beliefs and programs of actions as tentative and exper¬ 
imental.” 20 Just why Dr. Brown should disagree with these 

17 I think the fatal weakness in Dr. Brown’s quest for certginty is the analogy 
between the postulates of science and religion and his attribution of certainty to 
them precisely because they are incapable of proof {ibid., p. 206). 

18 Ibid., p. 193. 

19 Ibid., p. 41. 


20 Ibid., pp. 210-11 (footnote). 


108 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

sentiments is not easy to see unless he is not clear in his own 
thought on what is postulate and what hypothesis. Cer¬ 
tainty can come to the hypothesis only through verification, 
which in the case of religious beliefs is always very uncertain. 
A belief is not certain simply because it purports to amplify a 
postulate. All beyond postulate is hypothetical and tentative. 
If Dr. Brown had consistently adhered to this notion of re¬ 
ligious belief it would be easier to estimate his contribution 
to the solution of the problematical relations between science 
and religion. 

BELIEF AS APPROXIMATION TO REALITY 

History and sociology loom large in Dean Shailer Math¬ 
ews’ analysis of religious belief. His thought on this sub¬ 
ject differs from Dr. Brown’s in two important respects: 
(i) he does not proceed by analogy with science, and (2) he 
keeps beliefs in a consistently mobile or plastic state, in 
which growth is not only possible but inevitable. There is 
no vacillation in his position. He is in avowed opposition 
to the notion that religious beliefs are revelations of reality. 
Beliefs do represent the most reliable approximations which 
a given age could make to reality. The very nature of re¬ 
ligion requires this. For him, “ in its ultimate nature the 
behavior represented by the word religion can be described 
as a phase of the life process which seeks by control or coop¬ 
eration to get help from those elements of its cosmic environ¬ 
ment upon which men feel themselves dependent by setting 
up social, that is, personal relations with them.” 21 

Theology as the rational expression and coherent systema¬ 
tization of religious beliefs is functional rather than the 

21 Mathews, The Growth of the Idea of God (New York: The Macmillan 
Co., 1931), p. 6. 


Scientific Hypothesis and Religious Belief 109 

custodian of perfect and finished truths. Its purpose is to 
place traditional values at the disposal of contemporary life. 
It is not solely conservator of inherited experiences of value; 
it is also interpreter of them. Therefore it borrows from any 
given age patterns capable of transmitting its felt values. 
Now a “ pattern is a social institution or practice used to give 
content and intelligibility to otherwise unrationalized be¬ 
liefs.” 22 Different ages will have different dominant institu¬ 
tions and will provide different patterns for religious beliefs. 
Dean Mathews points out how the doctrine of the atonement 
has been transmitted by means of eight different patterns. 
In other words, the doctrines of religions are functional and 
upon analysis fall into two distinct parts which are never 
separated in actual living. First, the doctrine has a tradi¬ 
tional value, a basic message which is its raison d'etre, apart 
from which it simply would not have existed. This value is 
never found in its naked reality. It is found in part in cer¬ 
tain types of experience and is expressed by means of them. 
Second, the contemporary expression of it, which is relative 
to the social situation of a given age. The process by which 
a new pattern displaces an older form is never a conscious one 
but is an inevitable development of changed social conditions. 
Doctrines are not the creation of idle moments of whimsical 
fancy. Each one is an endeavor to answer a specific problem, 
to release a certain tension by indicating a value the discovery 
and appropriation of which would solve the problem or re¬ 
lease the tension. 

Doctrines so conceived cease to be subjective playthings and 
become as objective an aspect of a social situation as its form of 
government. They must meet a rigid test which is an in¬ 
exorable requirement. Dean Mathews says that the test by 

22 Mathews, The Atonement and the Social Process, p. 25. 


no The Quest for Religious Certainty 

which the truth of any doctrine is determined is “ its capacity 
to vindicate the deepest faith and the moral conduct of that 
group of Christians by which it was drawn up.” 23 Which, 
as I understand it, is saying that inherited conceptions of 
value must be related to problematic situations in such a 
way that order and purpose replace disorder and hesitation. 
The test of a religious belief, then, is its ability to provide 
direction for living. Granting the obvious point that “ deepest 
faith ” and “ moral conduct ” elude precise definition, the fact 
can hardly be disputed that each one indicates certain distinct 
areas of fact which are susceptible of a more accurate, at 
least fuller, description. Doctrines are vital only so long as 
they give expression to the values which undergird faith and 
action. Certainly the value of doctrines begins and ends with 
their vitality. The most important thing about them is what 
they are trying to say, the enduring reality which gives rele¬ 
vance and compulsion to all expressions of it, that fact which 
is repeatedly, albeit blunderingly, experienced in life and 
which one endeavors correctly to describe and account for. 
“ Theology will change, but Christian experience and faith 
embodied in the Christian movement will continue.” 24 
Dr. Mathews’ thought on religious belief might be sum¬ 
marized this way: (i) Religious beliefs are patterns drawn 
from the social situations and cannot be understood apart 
from this background; (2) patterns both indicate an experi¬ 
enced value and endeavor to conceptualize it by likening it 
to other accepted and conceptualized forms of experience; 
(3) the experienced value is indicated not confined by the 
conceptualization; (4) new and changing experiences of this 
value (love, for example) reveal new facts or aspects of it, 
hence our knowledge of it grows with our experience, social 

23 Ibid., pp. 12-13. 24 Ibid., pp. 28-29. 


Scientific Hypothesis and Religious Belief hi 

as well as personal; and (5) beliefs must be sensitive to cul¬ 
tural shifts and endeavor to keep in an organic relationship 
a constant experience of value, traditional formulations of it, 
and that conceptualization of it best calculated to describe and 
commend it to men. 

Tentativeness is essential to the efficacy of belief so con¬ 
ceived. It sets a premium on that attitude toward beliefs 
which invites change in the interest of a more effective con¬ 
ceptualization of the underlying value. This conception of 
religious belief utilizes the principle of polarity involved in 
the terms “ certainty ” and “ tentativeness.” Certainty de¬ 
rives from the value experience which is an unmistakably 
present reality, albeit vaguely cognized by belief. Belief is 
an attempt to reveal the nature of the underlying value by 
likening it to known objects. Tentativeness is inevitable be¬ 
cause the belief is an approximation of the reality encoun¬ 
tered in experience. 

Dr. Henry N. Wieman openly espouses the notion that the 
religious man must regard his beliefs as a scientist regards 
his hypotheses. “ The apologist for religion should present 
all our most sacred beliefs and programs of action as tenta¬ 
tive and experimental.” 25 This assertion is such an open 
invitation to tentativeness that one wonders whether there 
is any basis for certainty. Dr. Wieman’s critics have di¬ 
rected their sharpest attacks at this aspect of his thought. To 
most of them his attitude, faithfully portrayed in this state¬ 
ment, is throwing out the baby (conviction) with the bath 
(dogmatism). An examination of certain aspects of his 
thought will be instructive. 

Religion is theocentric. Religious beliefs, all of them, are 
ultimately statements about “ that structure of existence and 

25 Quoted by W. A. Brown, op. cit., pp. 210-11 (footnote). 


112 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

possibility which sustains and promotes value.” Theology, 
historically speaking, records man’s interpretation of what 
the fuller nature of this structure or God really is. But Dr. 
Wieman is explicit on the point that religion is not simply a 
mastery of theology, however sound. Religion is complete 
devotion to God, and this is something inclusive of but much 
more comprehensive than an intellectual enterprise. Man 
first meets God not in theology but in practical action. The 
“ grace of God ” comes to the one who strives to live for him 
rather than to one who strives to master more beliefs about 
him. Man is not made religious by knowledge about the 
actuality which sustains, promotes and constitutes greatest 
value (God), but “ what makes a man religious is to make 
this actuality the supreme concern of his living, no matter 
how little he may know about it, only knowing that it is.” 26 

All of which simply puts in proper perspective the signifi¬ 
cant place which belief occupies in Dr. Wieman’s thought. 
It has a precise function and nature. To begin with, he dis¬ 
penses with the notion that it is a fixed and final revelation 
of reality. 27 He not only reiterates but accepts the challenge 
thrown out by John Dewey to clarify the nature of belief and 
its place in religion and to specify the method by which its 
truth and falsity are achieved. This he does by characteriz¬ 
ing it in the following ways. 

(i) Belief is the cognitive side of religion. Without it de¬ 
votion would be an amorphous mass of sentiment. With it 
loyalties become definite in direction, purposes are possible, 
and actual discoveries are imminent. Belief, for Wieman as 
for Mathews, is a synthesis of past experiences of value and 
suggests the direction of further research in life. As such it 

26 “ Theocentric Religion,” Religion in Life, I, 102. 

27 Ibid., p. 103, and in various other writings. 


Scientific Hypothesis and Religious Belief 113 

must keep pace with the experiences of daily living, analyz¬ 
ing, relating and evaluating them. 

(2) Belief is tested as is any other cognitive enterprise, 
i.e., by observation and reason, which means “ that method 
of ruthless criticism and implacable reason which makes every 
proposition submitted to it progressively self-corrective.” 28 
Dr. Wieman utterly rejects the right of authorities such as 
church or Bible to settle a controversial point or to issue fiats 
relative to inconclusive experiences. Beliefs are to religion 
what hypotheses are to science and must be tested by pre¬ 
cisely the same canons of truth. 

(3) Belief is hypothesis. It must include (in the sense of 
giving some recognition to) the relevant facts. If it does not 
meet this preliminary requirement it is not a fair hypothesis. 
But in addition it must point the direction to data as yet un¬ 
observed. Innumerable analogies from science present them¬ 
selves. Perhaps the periodic table of elements is most apt. 
The known elements are arranged in such a structure that 
they predict definite characteristics of those elements which 
have, as yet, eluded observation. A hypothesis without di¬ 
rection and prediction is a contradiction in terms. Just so 
with religious belief. It not only summarizes known rele¬ 
vant data but must have a definite “ lean ” toward the future. 

Dr. Wieman summarizes his position on belief in this sig¬ 
nificant statement: “ To be sure we must have guiding propo¬ 
sitions about it [the object of supreme devotion]. We must 
have the truest and most adequate propositions we can pos¬ 
sibly achieve. We must give our lives and the centuries to 
the development of such propositions, not for the sake of 
the propositions in themselves, but because we must have 

28 Is there a God? by H. N. Wieman, D. C. Macintosh and M. C. Otto (Chi¬ 
cago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1932), P- 5 1 * 


114 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

intellectual tools with which to dedicate our lives to God; 
and we want the best tools that can be had. But always our 
hearts must be given not to our propositions, but to the real¬ 
ity itself, no matter how different this most worthful object 
may be from what our propositions assert.” 29 

Tentativeness is indispensable if beliefs are to function 
properly. They are instruments, tools. When they no 
longer serve either adequately to summarize known rele¬ 
vant data or to direct investigation they are to be discarded 
carefully though quickly. There is no knowledge of God 
without beliefs. Hence correct beliefs are one of the crying 
needs of religion. They alone furnish light and leading for 
religious living. Yet the driving power in religion is devo¬ 
tion rather than beliefs. Unless religion can elicit deathless 
devotion it is a doomed and mean affair. 30 “ The religion of 
infallible devotion must take the place of the religion of in¬ 
fallible beliefs.” 31 Devotion, then, is the basis of certainty 
and provides the polar opposite of tentativeness. Tentative¬ 
ness derives from cognition, certainty from devotion. Reli¬ 
gion is the resultant of this tension in the area of values. 

We have been surveying two possible positions relative to 
the nature of religious belief: (i) it is a revelation of reality; 
(2) it is an approximation of reality. The implications of 
each for the notion of tentativeness are plain. If religious de¬ 
votion is dependent upon inerrancy of belief, tentativeness 
must be rejected root and branch, for it is the death of reli¬ 
gion. If religious loyalty is elicited by and trained upon an 
unknown best found in but not cognized by experience, ten¬ 
tativeness is an invaluable aid in the search for knowledge of 

29 Ibid., p. 85. 

30 Wieman feels that there are definite ways in which such devotion can be 
elicited. Is There a God? p. 128. 

31 Ibid., p. 52. 


Scientific Hypothesis and Religious Belief 115 

the object of religious loyalty. In this case, tentativeness re¬ 
leases religion from the locked hands of dead belief. 

TENTATIVENESS AND CERTAINTY IN 
RELIGIOUS BELIEF 

Religion is an empirical enterprise in that the propositions 
about God, the world and man have at least one empirical 
fact which makes them relevant to human life. Its propo¬ 
sitions, doctrines or beliefs are assertions as to the ultimate 
nature or meanings of empirical facts. The accuracy and 
value of its theology, then, are in genuine measure dependent 
upon the realism and insight which it shows within this 
world of empirical reality. It must have easily recognizable 
relevance to life. When theologians talk about sin they must 
produce in their audience a sense of pertinence similar in 
kind to that secured by Jonathan Edwards in his Northamp¬ 
ton revival sermons. When they discourse on love or any 
other Christian virtue it must be first and foremost of the 
earth earthy and then of the heaven heavenly. The subject 
matter of religious belief is always within the reach of hu¬ 
man minds because it is drawn from the context of human 
life and endeavors to meet specific problems by the advance¬ 
ment of concrete proposals. 

If one holds that religious belief is a revelation of reality, 
he is asserting, indirectly, that we possess certain rather than 
probable knowledge of empirical reality. Yet our survey 
of this problem showed the impossibility of this. Certain 
knowledge is prescriptive, whereas empirical knowledge is al¬ 
ways descriptive. Certain knowledge proceeds by means of 
an invariant relation, whereas empirical knowledge has been, 
as yet, unable to set up and maintain even the most general 
type of boundaries between various fields of research. The 


ii 6 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

only conclusion open to us is that empirical knowledge is 
probable rather than certain. If religious belief is empirical, 
or incorporates empirical facts, it cannot lay claim to more 
than probable knowledge unless the further position is taken 
that religion possesses a unique way of knowing empirical 
reality and can therefore claim certain knowledge. 32 

If, on the other hand, one accepts the position I have been 
outlining, that religious belief is an approximation of reality, 
he is accepting and abiding by the notion that empirical 
knowledge is probable rather than certain. Tentativeness is 
an inevitable concomitant of this conception of religious be¬ 
lief. Religious belief is held tentatively in precisely the same 
sense as is a scientific hypothesis. The certainties of past ex¬ 
perience and experienced reality enter into both types of in¬ 
vestigation. 

As I shall use the term, “religious attitude” amounts 
roughly to what Dr. Wieman calls devotion. It is the to¬ 
tality of one’s religious response. So conceived it includes 
both belief and ethical conduct. Religious belief and reli¬ 
gious living are integral aspects of the religious attitude. Yet 
it contains something else which is not adequately expressed 
by either of these, namely, a loyalty or devotion to an objec¬ 
tive reality which is deeper than belief and action though it 
finds concrete empirical expression in them. 

Religion, as Hoffding pointed out, is preeminently con¬ 
cerned with value. It seems to me that this affirmation pro¬ 
vides a clue to a significant interpretation of the genius of 
the religious attitude — that of appreciation of value, or, 
better still, reverence for value. 33 Were it not for this under- 

82 Chap. IV is an endeavor to analyze possible methods by which this is at¬ 
tempted. 

83 Albert Schweitzer’s “reverence for life” ( Christendom, I, No. i) is in 
reality a reverence for certain qualities or values found in life. 


Scientific Hypothesis and Religious Belief 117 

lying attitude, questions as to specific values would never 
arise. Stated in its most general terms (so general, in fact, 
that it is less a belief than an attitude), the religious attitude 
affirms that relative to life the universe possesses value. It is 
the basic motivation in the quest for the good, the abundant 
life. Though specific notions of what constitutes the abun¬ 
dant life may and do change, the notion that there is an 
abundant life is constant. It always expresses itself in con¬ 
crete proposals which are up for criticism and experimenta¬ 
tion, but it continues though any number of these prove 
false. Beliefs as to its nature are essential. Only by and 
through them can we ever hope to discover modes of life cal¬ 
culated to release the value-potential in the universe. Tenta¬ 
tiveness characterizes beliefs; certainty characterizes the atti¬ 
tude. If we forget tentativeness, beliefs ossify and become 
vicious. If we forget certainty, the very necessity of beliefs 
vanishes and the acids of cynicism begin their work. 


VIII 


SYNTHESIS OF TENTATIVENESS 
AND CERTAINTY IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY 


THEOLOGY FACES BOTH TENTATIVENESS 


AND CERTAINTY 


BRIEF assessment of the theological implications of 



the preceding line of thought is perhaps overdue. 


JL V This, it seems to me, is the heart of the matter: 
Theology is the discipline above all others which can and 
should keep tentativeness and certainty in a polar relation¬ 
ship. Which may sound strange to a generation that has 
seen theology kicked from pillar to post as an impossible at¬ 
tempt to guarantee a short cut to certainty. On the surface, 
theology’s concern is with certainty; she is the acknowledged 
custodian of religious truths, though now she is usually de¬ 
picted like Jerusalem of old, “ a widow weeping for her chil¬ 
dren.” Granted, immediately, orthodox theology has been 
preoccupied with dogmas and doctrines whose truths rest 
ultimately upon revelation. Granted, also, that theology has, 
in a pinch, favored the deliverances of faith over the con¬ 
clusions of reason. Granted, finally, that these tactics have 
led to the breach between theology and the “ modern mind.” 

Granting all this we should, none the less, never permit 
credo quia absurdum to blind us to the basic fact that theol¬ 
ogy, even in her most autocratic days, insisted upon two sig¬ 
nificant items, (i) Theology is relevant to life. Its doctrines 
are worthy of belief because they are true, not in any remote 
sense but precisely because they are related in a positive way 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 119 

to human problems. 1 The humanity of theology, its serious 
and sustained endeavor to solve immediate as well as ulti¬ 
mate problems, is a vital characteristic too often overlooked 
by critics. It is obvious that its method of solving human 
problems was frequently inadequate, especially when the 
crucial problems were plagues and famines. Roger Bacon 
put the case sharply when he opined that the best way to 
check the typhoid epidemic then raging was to analyze 
ditch water rather than to say more masses. No sane man 
would disagree with him; yet it is pertinent to point out that, 
lacking either the notion or the means of analyzing ditch 
water, the next best and only thing for a realist to do would 
be to say mass, because no other method for dealing with the 
diabolical character of a plague had been devised. 

(2) Theology has almost invariably affirmed the ability 
of reason to discover empirical evidence sufficient to indi¬ 
cate the rationality of dogmas even though their real authori¬ 
zation is by revelation. Many mystics like Bernard of Clair- 
vaux and Meister Eckhart would disagree; even Luther 
would register a violent protest, though he fell back on 
Melanchthon’s steady reasoning when formulating his the¬ 
ology. But Augustine, Abelard, Aquinas and most other in¬ 
fluential thinkers took the position emphasized. 

It is my contention that when these two neglected aspects 
of theology are given sufficient attention, theology will be 
able to use tentativeness as an attribute of equal importance 
with certainty. To put the case definitively: Religion is an 
attempt to keep a system of values in an organic relationship 
with both the insights and the perplexities of human life. In 
its endeavor to fulfill this heavy demand religion utilizes 
three techniques, each of which may be pursued separately, 

1 Cf. W. H. Bernhardt, “ A Preface to Theology,” Religion in Life, I, 358 ff. 


120 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

yet which it, with prophetic genius, holds together. First, 
its theology either appropriates or fashions a philosophy of 
value. This is much more than a plain listing of values (vir¬ 
tues or ends); it consists of a metaphysics and theory of 
knowledge of values, as well as a method for testing them; 
without these two there can be no validation of values. Sec¬ 
ond, religion emphasizes worship as a definite means of 
deepening reverence for value in general and specific values 
in particular. Third, every religion ties its theology to life 
by means of an ethical code — a “this do and thou shalt 
live ” or “ one thing thou lackest ” — which is both an ex¬ 
pression of, and an opportunity to test, the valuational in¬ 
sights gained through thought about and adoration of value. 

I readily grant that orthodox theology does not admit that 
its insights can be empirically disproved and am prepared to 
insist that any theology which survives contemporary criti¬ 
cism should and must make this admission. In earlier chap¬ 
ters I have tried to indicate reasons why the claims to finality 
of theological doctrines must be abandoned. If it is admitted 
that the content and conclusions of religious beliefs can and 
must be kept sensitive to changing and accumulating experi¬ 
ences, it is inevitable that an ancient test of truth should be 
embraced: “ By their fruits shall ye know them.” Let it be 
noted that whoever in his quest for certainty requires finality 
of theology must be willing to see it divorced both from spe¬ 
cific human problems and from accord with reason. Such a 
theology would be a compact curio, a marvel of completed 
perfection, yet quite irrelevant to empirical existence. It is 
precisely because most of us are not willing to accept this 
alternative that a new age of theology is upon us. That this 
is true is evidenced by the amount of attention theological 
thinkers are giving the three perplexing problems dealt with 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 121 

in this and subsequent chapters: investigation of the impli¬ 
cations of current philosophies of value in an endeavor to de¬ 
termine their contribution to the religious approach to hu¬ 
man problems; investigation of the meaning of worship, to 
appraise it as a possible personal and social approach to the 
universe upon which we are dependent; determination of 
the ethical implications of philosophies of value. The chief 
concern of this book is to understand how tentativeness and 
certainty interact in the various areas. It will be seen that 
inasmuch as these problem-centers are integral to theology, 
theology will and does reflect what is found in them. 

THE FUNCTIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF VALUE 2 

Lewis says that philosophy is not discovery of novelties 
but rather a clarification of what already exists in vague and 
ill defined ways in human experience. 3 Evidence of this is 
found in philosophies of value. They come into existence 
in order to describe, analyze and render available for specific 
predictions a fundamental “ consciousness of value.” A phi¬ 
losophy of value in order to do this must endeavor to explain 
the nature of value, how it is known, if it can be known, and 
to produce a standard or criterion for determining dimen¬ 
sions, proportions or degrees among specific instances. This 
means that a philosophy of value is an excursion into meta¬ 
physics (theory of reality) and epistemology (theory of 
knowledge); which in turn indicates the fundamental fact 
that these philosophical areas serve a theory of value much 
as the broad base of a pyramid serves its apex. 

But the point of departure, the sine qua non of any and 

2 John Dewey and Henry N. Wieman are exponents of this theory; much of 
the following exposition is drawn from the writings of one or the other or both. 

3 Lewis, Mind and the World Order, pp. 2 fT. 


122 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

every philosophy of value is a consciousness of value. Which 
is to say that the specific endeavor to state the meaning of 
truth, beauty, goodness or any other value is, first, to indi¬ 
cate certain types of experience which have been encountered 
prior to this recognition, and, second, to call attention to their 
essential quality. Certainty derives both from the conscious¬ 
ness of the reality of such experiences and from confidence 
in the method of describing, analyzing, and placing them in 
conceptual form. Tentativeness manifestly derives from the 
fact that the experiences are items of empirical reality, and 
judgments placed upon them, purporting to reveal their es¬ 
sential quality, must appeal to future experiences for their 
substantiation and must, therefore, lay claim to probable 
rather than certain truth. 

All of which may be considerably clarified if we illustrate 
by a discussion of the functional philosophy of value which 
impresses me as the most fruitful one up for consideration. 

This is to be distinguished, on the one hand, from subjec¬ 
tivism, which equates liking or satisfaction with value, and, 
on the other, from that form of realism which is so insistent 
upon the objectivity of values that it is negligent about re¬ 
lating them to human experience. The functional philoso¬ 
phy of value mediates between these extremes, agreeing with 
the former that value has no meaning when divorced from 
the experience of enjoyment born of satisfied desires, and 
with the latter that such enjoyment is dependent in part 
upon objective factors to which human desires may be ad¬ 
justed but which are not plastic in any other sense. 

The unit of value, the point at which thought on value be¬ 
gins, is an enjoyable situation, 4 which, upon analysis, exhib¬ 
its three distinct parts: (i) an experiencing mind, (2) an 

4 Wieman’s phrase. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 123 

experienced object, (3) other factors conditioning the rela¬ 
tionship. Although the last is a sort of catchall category, it, 
along with the first two, deserves closer scrutiny. 

(1) The experiencing mind is indispensable to any value. 
The experiencing mind may be only a possibility, but it can 
be no less if the situation is to be called a value. Every con¬ 
scious state has a tinge of liking or disliking, fulfillment or 
frustration, satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Consciousness as 
a practical enterprise in the sense of relating things to itself 
or itself to things is not neutral. It is for or against the situa¬ 
tion in which it finds itself, actually or imaginatively. If 
enjoyment is the clue to value, it follows that an experiencing 
mind is an indispensable ingredient of value. 

Since the experiencing mind is integral to the value situa¬ 
tion it exercises a certain measure of control over the situa¬ 
tion. This control may take the form of some adjustment. 
If one is viewing a painting from an angle at which the 
colors blur, one can move to another point of view which 
mediates the beauty of the picture. We must neither exag¬ 
gerate nor minimize the importance of the measure of prac¬ 
tical control which the experiencing mind exercises in the 
value. Man cannot, by fiat, create value; but value cannot 
exist without man. 

The experiencing mind introduces a temporal span into a 
specific enjoyable situation by adducing a prospective refer¬ 
ence. This foresight or adumbration takes the form of mean¬ 
ing. This meaning may or may not be explicitly in con¬ 
sciousness at the moment of experience. A traveler once 
remarked, “ It means a lot to me to have stood on the edge of 
the Grand Canyon.” It is doubtful if the moment of the ex¬ 
perience contained a specification of the various ways in 
which the experience was to influence the future, but that 


124 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

they were genuine possibilities cannot be doubted. The ex¬ 
periencing mind may introduce the prospective reference by 
way of vivid memory of the situation, which memory will 
gradually modify one’s life, or the impression may be so pro¬ 
found that, in a moment, old standards of meaning are torn 
down and greater limits within which new ones must be 
built marked out. 5 In either case, the enjoyable situation is 
appropriated by the experiencing mind as an open rather 
than closed event, for meanings stream forth from it condi¬ 
tioning future behavior. The degree of valuehood achieved 
by an enjoyable situation is determined by the range and 
intensity of such meanings. 

(2) The second component of an enjoyable situation is 
the experienced object. The factor of objectivity, of “ there- 
ness,” is an integral part of an enjoyable situation. 

An experienced object presents an “ aesthetic surface,” a 
pattern of qualities by which it is known. This includes 
colors, sounds, shapes, with their possibilities of engendering 
an emotional response. Some objects are superior to others 
as factors in an enjoyable situation, because the pattern of 
qualities which they exhibit displays four characteristics in 
a superior measure: (1) richness — by which is meant the 
number and diversity of qualities; (2) clarity — which de¬ 
notes that the pattern can be easily distinguished and per¬ 
ceived; (3) unity — the qualities actually comprise a pattern 
which is one aesthetic surface of the object; (4) vividness — 
which is a correlate of the preceding characteristics, and des¬ 
ignates the uniqueness of the particular pattern of qualities 
by which immediate and compelling recognition is given. 

5 Cf. William P. Montague’s autobiographical essay in Contemporary Ameri¬ 
can Philosophy, George P. Adams and William P. Montague, eds. (The Macmillan 
Co., 1930), for a vivid example of the way in which old standards are swept away 
by the torrent of inarticulate meanings engendered by a form of mystic experience. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 125 

In addition to the pattern of qualities which the experi¬ 
enced object exhibits there are certain practical requirements 
which likewise characterize it. If control of an enjoyable 
situation is possible in any degree, it is because the experi¬ 
enced object has features which permit this control. This 
aspect of the object may be designated as its structure as dis¬ 
tinct from its aesthetic surface. The structure of a great 
painting is painfully obvious to the amateur who endeavors 
to copy it. Not only do the brilliance and blend of colors 
drive him to despair, but the proportions of parts and whole 
alike of the canvas, without which the aesthetic surface 
could not exist, also baffle him. Every great artist paints into 
his pictures a philosophy of structure or proportion which 
is an organic aspect of his creations. To enter into an en¬ 
joyable situation in which a great painting is the experienced 
object does not mean that one must endeavor to copy it. But 
the various perspectives of the canvas which comprise its 
totality are determined by the structure of the painting. 
Knowledge of the fact that a particular picture is at its best 
when viewed from a certain angle is recognition of the struc¬ 
ture which obtains in it together with directions as to the 
most satisfactory form of adjustment. 

A very important feature of the experienced object is its 
connection with other actual or possible enjoyable situations. 
Earlier we referred to the man who had been profoundly 
impressed by the Grand Canyon. The experienced object 
was the indescribable beauty and grandeur of the canyon. 
Yet this canyon has definite connections with other enjoy¬ 
able situations. That it has such is owing to the meaning it 
had for the beholder. Though he was unable to articulate 
the precise form of the meanings it is evident that because 
of them he felt himself to be a different man. One signifi- 


126 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

cant specifiable change is this: he was more receptive to 
beauty. Hence wherever or whenever he comes into the 
presence of beauty, whatever its locus, the Grand Canyon is 
an operative factor. For him, the Grand Canyon as the ex¬ 
perienced object in an enjoyable situation was of immeas¬ 
urable worth because it had lifted his aesthetic consciousness 
to new levels of sensitivity. 

(3) The third component of an enjoyable situation is 
plural in number rather than singular. It is composed of 
what may be called, for lack of a more specific term, out¬ 
side factors. This refers to factors outside consciousness, ob¬ 
jective to it as well as to the experienced object. One such 
is the cultural background of the experiencing individual. 
It may be asserted that the cultural background is within the 
experiencing mind. To a large extent this is true, but it can 
hardly be argued that the cultural background is exhausted 
by its influence on the mind. It is an objectively real factor 
to both the experiencing mind and the experienced object, 
though it may be influential in the formation of both. It 
furnishes an atmosphere, so to speak, within which the ex¬ 
periencing mind and the experienced object unite. It deter¬ 
mines the character of the world; for example, the books, 
magazines and art forms within which the meanings dis¬ 
covered in a value situation must grow and develop. 

Another outside factor is the presence of certain pervasive 
natural structures which are indispensable to the situation. 
We refer to certain orders of nature, for one thing. If the 
enjoyable situation has as its object a beautiful landscape, 
the orders of nature designated would be the condition of the 
sky, the angle of the sun, the quality of the atmosphere. Re¬ 
verting to our friend viewing the Grand Canyon, it is con¬ 
ceivable that the day might have been such that the scene 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 127 

would have made a totally different impression upon him. 
Rain, wind, sandstorm, etc. — any one of these would have 
or might have actually altered the entire meaning of the 
situation. 

Although the enjoyable situation may be thus analyzed 
into various factors, one fact keeps forcing itself upon us as 
we consider each factor, namely, that the enjoyable situation 
is an actual, vital organic unity. The slightest alteration in 
any factor issues in a new situation. Each part supports, 
modifies, enhances, hence means, every other part. 

An enjoyable situation may have any degree of inclusive¬ 
ness. In fact, inclusiveness is the standard by which the 
value of an enjoyable situation is judged. If the factors are 
of such a nature that their meaning implies a great system 
of other enjoyable situations, the situation is of great value. 

The problem of life is how to connect enjoyable situations 
until they form an inclusive system. Every significant quest 
in life is for the important meanings of an enjoyable situa¬ 
tion in order that it may be vitally related to the other great 
meanings by which life exists. Yet it is important to remem¬ 
ber the fact that every enjoyable situation which comes to 
be a value is never completely exhausted by any moment of 
existence. Its prospective reference, its meanings, constitute 
a cloud of possibilities, some few of which are shed at any 
given time. The common lament, “ If only I had known! ” 
illustrates the point. For it admits with poignant simplicity 
that some antecedent situation had a multiplicity of mean¬ 
ings which either were not known or were passed over 
lightly. The ones that were selected as significant did not 
fulfill their high promise. Hence the longing for another 
chance to ally oneself with different meanings in the past 
situation. 


128 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

There is something unique about every enjoyable situation. 
Its uniqueness naturally cannot be reproduced, but its domi¬ 
nant meanings are as a rule sharable. Art and literature are 
set to the task of singling out and dramatizing such meanings. 
The tremendous influence of religion is attributable to the 
flood of meaning, derived from previous value situations, 
which it pours into present perplexities. We shall see in later 
chapters how the central symbols of the Christian religion 
have grown more valuable through the ages by gathering into 
themselves the profound experiences of succeeding genera¬ 
tions. Nowhere does the genius of the Christian religion 
display itself to better advantage than in its dealings with 
defeats and tragedies, for it raises them to the status of signifi¬ 
cant values. As the initial step, it insists that they are not ulti¬ 
mate: “ Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in 
the morning ” — the source of this confidence being God 
who is able to provide, and that abundantly, for the needs of 
his children. Then as a fitting symbol of this stupendous 
faith the crucifixion and death of Jesus are inseparably linked 
with his resurrection and ascension. Hence Christians speak 
of the day when he was crucified and died as “ Good Friday,” 
because it issues in the triumphant celebration of Easter 
morning. 

The theological implications of the preceding analysis of 
the unit of value will become apparent when we center atten¬ 
tion upon its metaphysical and epistemological implications. 

One prime metaphysical consideration is this: Values are 
organic to nature and are neither superimposed upon it nor 
achieved in spite of it. This is not tantamount to saying that 
nature has as its sole concern the creation and promotion of 
values. It is simply to affirm that whenever and wherever 
values occur they are identifiable relationships in nature. The 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 129 

activities which underlie all values are types of interaction be¬ 
tween forms of nature. Take the value of health for exam¬ 
ple. It is the organic result of a number of activities such as 
breathing, eating, drinking, sleeping, exercising, playing and 
working. These unite in one organism to produce health. 
For man, at least, this value does not exist in haughty isolation. 
Rather it tends to fuse with other values, such as education, 
culture, economic security, social status, creative work, to pro¬ 
duce the abundant life. My present point is that anywhere 
you touch the structure of values, whether the unit or the 
largest aggregate of units known to man, it is part and parcel 
of nature. 

All of which can be summarized by the statement that man 
is an integral part of nature. He not only discovers relations 
among objects and processes in nature outside himself, but 
he is related to them as much as they are to one another. Even 
the fact of discovery simply intensifies the interrelation of 
natural objects. When man discovers something about him¬ 
self, such as the circulation of the blood or the process by 
which he has developed, he augments his knowledge of na¬ 
ture. “ Nature’s place in man,” writes Dewey, “ is no less 
significant than man’s place in nature. Man in nature is man 
subjected; nature in man, recognized and used, is intelligence 
and art . . . the fact of integration in life is basic.” 8 Manas 
a phase of nature sustains observable relations with other 
phases. But livelihood and security have always aimed at a 
much closer integration with the phases that sustain and pro¬ 
mote life than man has yet been able to obtain. He must 
therefore manipulate nature, himself included, until the sense 
of frustration and hazard is removed or at least minimized. 7 

6 Experience and Nature, p. 28. 

7 Walter Lippmann indicates that our only hope lies in scaling down our de¬ 
mands until they are satisfied by the meager offerings of nature. 


130 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

The fact of intelligence gives man a strategic position in 
nature largely because through it the scope of actual or po¬ 
tential relationships is increased to include portions of past, 
present and future. 

A reasonably exact functional description of mind is that 
it is the capacity for doing three things at once: (1) manipu¬ 
lating the present circumstances (2) by skills born of past 
experience (3) toward the achievement or in the direction of 
future ends. Certainly reflection enables man to treasure up 
his significant hopes and dreams until in some way he can in¬ 
corporate them in existence. As long as man recognizes him¬ 
self as that part of nature which is capable of some degree of 
self-direction and manipulation of his environment, his cause 
in the cosmos is not hopeless. Puny and weak though he may 
be when laid alongside the universe, he does not find the uni¬ 
verse indifferent to his efforts to manipulate it. The universe 
does not coddle man as an only-begotten son, yet it manifests 
approachability. Consider Dewey’s conviction that “ nature 
... is idealizable. It lends itself to operations by which it is 
perfected. The process is not a passive one. Rather nature 
gives, not always freely, but in response to search, means and 
material by which the values we judge to have supreme qual¬ 
ity may be embodied in existence. It depends upon the choice 
of man whether he employs what nature provides and for 
what ends he uses it.” 8 

Another significant metaphysical inference from the pre¬ 
ceding analysis is that values are dynamic aspects of reality. 
We have seen how the value “ health ” is an organic unity of 
discrete activities and how the abundant life is the most inclu¬ 
sive unity of the great values that are open to man. It is, 

8 The Quest for Certainty, p. 302. Cf. also E. S. Ames, Religion (New York: 
Henry Holt & Co., 1929). 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 131 

therefore, characteristic of values that they tend to lose (inte¬ 
grate) themselves in larger unities. Only those enjoyments 
which can so integrate themselves possess potential value. 

A third inference is reached by adding the first two to¬ 
gether; namely, the criterion of value is this: Greatest value is 
to be found in the most inclusive system of mutually sustain¬ 
ing and meaningful enjoyable situations. 9 This is the yard¬ 
stick for determining whether an enjoyment is an apt candi¬ 
date for valuehood, or which of two values is the more 
significant. 

The epistemological implications of this philosophy of 
value are equally significant. Knowledge of value is empiri¬ 
cal since values are specific relationships in nature and must 
therefore be approached like any other form of empirical 
knowledge. 10 There are three definite component parts in 
knowledge of value which deserve separate statement al¬ 
though they are fused into a vital unity in life: (1) the expe¬ 
rience of enjoyment; (2) the judgment of value; (3) verifica¬ 
tion via consequences which confirm the judgment. 

The fact of experienced enjoyment is the given 11 of knowl¬ 
edge of value. It is the clue to the possible immanence of a 
certain relationship in nature. Man, as one element in the re¬ 
lationship, approaches the given with a consciousness of value 
born of past experiences. He adjudges the present enjoy¬ 
ment a value of some degree or other, depending upon his 
conception of its ability to integrate itself with his value sys¬ 
tem. In this his guiding light is intelligence, which proceeds 
upon the information garnered by past experience and made 

9 This is what Wieman means by supreme value and God. Cf. his paper, 
“God and Value,” in Religious Realism, edited by D. C. Macintosh (New York: 
The Macmillan Co., 1931), pp. 155-56. 

10 Chap. V contains an analysis of the structure of empirical knowledge. 

11 Cf. Chap. V. 


132 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

available for rapid judgment in the form of beliefs or hypoth¬ 
eses which embody the implications of the funded wisdom. 
This equipment for value judgments exists prior to any con¬ 
scious use of it in measuring an enjoyment . 12 And the whole 
thrust of the judgment is into the unknown future. It is a 
statement of what will come to pass but its truth or falsity is 
determined by the accuracy with which it has predicted the 
consequences which actually do eventuate from the enjoy¬ 
ment. Esau enjoyed the mess of pottage; Jacob went hungry, 
apparently, but enjoyed Esau’s meal even more than Esau did. 
Each had made a value judgment relative to an enjoyment 
and one was grievously disappointed when some conse¬ 
quences which he had chosen to ignore as possibilities actually 
came to pass. Esau’s judgment of value was contradicted by 
further experience. The pottage doubtless contributed to 
his momentary health and therefore to his happiness, but 
when it ceased contributing to his health, his happiness was 
negated by other consequences overlooked by his judgment 
of value. 

Not all cases of value judgment are as manifestly simple as 
this one. But the principle is valid throughout life. Expert 
advice is valuable because it is supposed to take into account 
possible consequences not apparent to the lay mind. Re¬ 
ligion has made abundant use of it. The prophets of Israel 
surveyed their day and offered counsel based upon value judg¬ 
ments. Certain great ethical generalizations are simply ar¬ 
ticulations of the totality of the prophetic belief about value: 

“ Sin brings punishment,” or “ The soul that sinneth, it shall 
die.” Each of these was capable of application to specific in¬ 
stances of sin. Whether this proved a valid application de- 

12 This is not to say that it is an inherited quantity. Rather we have every 
reason to believe that it is the human organism’s way of reacting to environment. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 133 

pended upon the consequences which actually came to pass, 
and this lay with the future. This was so patently true to 
experience that both Jeremiah and the prophetic writers of 
Deuteronomy stated that the only way to determine whether 
a prophet is a true or false one is to wait and see how accu¬ 
rate his predictions are. “ By their fruits ye shall know them ” 
speaks for itself on the adequate criterion of truth in life. 

SOME THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS 
OF THIS PHILOSOPHY OF VALUE 

The theological implications of the functional philosophy of 
value are profoundly related to many if not most of the crucial 
doctrines of traditional Christian thought. While there is 
good authority for not trying to pour new wine into old wine¬ 
skins, we have just seen that the idea is scarcely new wine 
since the prophets and Jesus used it. A casual acquaintance 
with Christian thought is sufficient to indicate that it is a 
wholly false metaphor to liken theological doctrines to wine¬ 
skins. As Shailer Mathews and S. J. Case have pointed out, 
doctrines are always organic aspects of social life and derive 
their vitality from that relationship . 13 

1. The Doctrine of God. It is a flat contradiction of fact to 
assert that the Christian tradition stands squarely behind 
some one conception of God. That tradition has always 
supported a vigorous doctrine of God but interpretations of 
the precise meaning of the doctrine have been multiple and 
prolific. It is impossible to get unanimity among the ac¬ 
knowledged intellectual giants of the Christian tradition. 
Origen, Augustine, Erigena, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, 

13 Mathews, The Growth of the Idea of God, The Atonement and the Social 
Process; Case, Jesus Through the Centuries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 
1932), Highways of Christian Doctrine (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1936). 


134 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

when studied on this subject present interesting and funda¬ 
mental differences of opinion. Nor were these divergences 
solely within the ranks of the thinkers; the perennial feud be¬ 
tween the rationalists and the mystics (sometimes within the 
same person as in Augustine) always flared up on the subject 
of the nature of God. Although the theology of the church 
from Aquinas onward has insisted upon the rationality of 
the doctrine, which in turn implies the applicability of such 
attributes as good, etc., a profound tendency in mysticism has 
insisted that God is beyond the reach of predicates of any 
kind . 14 The large number of heretical movements and fig¬ 
ures (many of them deriving from controversy over the idea 
of God) which appear on every page of Christian history 
testify both to the constant effort on the part of the church 
to secure unanimity and to her inability to do so. 

Yet almost all the endeavors to state the meaning of the 
doctrine of God in concrete terms have utilized certain 
concepts which did help. All agree that God is Creator. 
Whether of everything, including the devil, is a moot ques¬ 
tion, but the salient fact is that God is a creative spirit and is 
perpetually present in and among his creatures, which in¬ 
clude the subhuman levels of existence as well as the human 
levels. 

Also, the adjectives “ immanent ” and “ transcendent ” ap¬ 
pear with practical unanimity. They indicate the fact that 
God is both within and beyond the world. As Creator he is 
involved in it not alone in the act of creation but also as its 
continuing strata of laws. But he is not contained by the 
world. He transcends it spatially because he is the totality of 
Being within which the world occurs. He transcends it tem¬ 
porally because his Being is the eternality within which its 

14 Dionysius the Areopagite and St. John of the Cross exemplify this tendency. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 135 

changes occur. He transcends it as cause transcends effect, 
as the law of change transcends changes. 

Perhaps the most significant quartet of phrases traditionally 
used is: the will of God, the justice of God, the grace of God, 
and the love of God. These are significant because all relate 
God to the ever present facts of ethical choice, struggle, failure 
and success. 

The will of God denotes the law of God’s being which is 
relevant to each and every choice which confronts all men 
everywhere. There is a right and a wrong way to choose 
and the decisive factor is the will of God; it is the right way. 
The obvious fact that we are not able clearly to discern the 
will of God is better explained by our finitude than by his 
inconstancy or irrelevance. Either the church (for the 
Catholic tradition) or the Bible (for the Protestants) was sup¬ 
posed to be able to furnish light on the fuller nature of the 
will of God in order to facilitate wise choices. 

The justice of God, taken by itself or accepted as the domi¬ 
nant attribute of God (as Calvin did), yields a universe of in¬ 
exorable moral law. God is constant goodness and he re¬ 
quires that his creatures conform to the laws of his being. 
The reward of obedience is salvation; that is, eternal happi¬ 
ness. The punishment for failure to conform, regardless of 
the cause, is swift and awful. “ Be not deceived, God is not 
mocked,” might well be inscribed over the Christian doctrine 
of God. It is the negative rendering of a positive point, 
namely, that God has a definite nature the laws of which are 
the laws of existence. 

The grace of God prevents the justice of God from being 
simply a universal moral law such as that basic in Buddhism. 
But grace denotes worlds more than mere kindness and be¬ 
nevolent sympathy. It is God searching for man in order to 


136 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

redeem him. Man, through either original sin or choice, suf¬ 
fers because he has failed to conform to the will of God. The 
grace of God is tenderly symbolized in the parable of the Lost 
Sheep; it is God who by searching him out brings man into 
renewed contact with Himself, thereby making salvation 
possible. 

The love of God is the most inclusive of the phrases. It gath¬ 
ers the will, the justice and the grace of God into itself and 
fuses them into a warm affectional unity: God loves man. 
Jesus is the constant symbol of this love. His sacrifice, symbol¬ 
ized by every cross in Christendom, is eloquent testimony to 
the real depths of God’s love. This love is not passing fancy; it 
is God in his totality. It does not negate his justice nor does it 
soften his will — these are integral to his being — but the 
love of God describes the whole of which these are parts. An¬ 
other way of describing it is to say that God’s share in the re¬ 
demption of man is out of all proportion to all the repenting 
and efforts at goodness which men may do and make. How 
else is it possible that “ the just shall live by faith ” ? Luther’s 
discernment of this truth — it is at least as old as the character 
of the Father in Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son — gave him 
a peace which all his efforts at penance could not bring. 

These, then, are some of the widely used ways in which the 
doctrine of God was explained and related to human prob¬ 
lems. Attention has been called to them because they illus¬ 
trate the relationship between the functional philosophy of 
value and Christian theology. 

It is important at this juncture to reaffirm the fact that it is 
the purpose of theology to relate a philosophy of value to re¬ 
current human problems. There is some philosophy of value 
embedded in every theology and any philosophy of value has 
implications for human problems. Whether the implications 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 137 

are numerous and profound enough to minister to the range 
of need is an important question. Theology can make little 
or no use of a philosophy of value that is wholly subjective, 
where value is tantamount to liking or satisfied desire. 
Neither can it render religiously significant one that divorces 
the essential existence of value from the scene of human 
choices, making of value a perfect entity which hovers over 
existence, giving the illusion of relevance yet being wholly 
self-contained. In addition, theology cannot put to any en¬ 
during use a philosophy of value that does not proclaim the 
reality of a value hierarchy; it must be possible to grade, rank 
and systematize concrete values. 

Lest the preceding remarks sound like prompting reality on 
her lines, a laying down of the law to the universe, so to speak, 
as to what it must be like, let me say that the only inference to 
be drawn is that if theology cannot find a philosophy of value 
which is both relevant to human problems and yet objective 
to them, which, in addition, points out a gradation of values, 
then theology has fallen on evil days. And that is pre¬ 
cisely what has happened historically. The Renaissance was 
a fundamental revolution in philosophy of value. Since the 
breakup of the medieval synthesis no philosophy of value has 
been able to reorder the resulting confusion. Theology has 
been on the skids since that epoch. It has been in constant 
turmoil, trusting its case first to the subjectivistic value theory 
of romanticism, and then to the realistic value theory implied 
by the doctrine of universal law in rationalism. With the 
challenging of each of these theology has been challenged. 
Today it is endeavoring to fulfill its ancient obligation, that is, 
meeting human needs by means of various value theories. 
Hence this attempt to see what lies ahead for theology in the 
functional philosophy of value. 


138 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

What does the doctrine of God mean in terms of this philos¬ 
ophy of value ? 15 Let it be noted at once that God is supreme 
value. He is not the sensation of pleasure which characterizes 
every enjoyment but he is that integrative aspect of an en¬ 
joyment through which it merges with other enjoyments to 
form a system, thereby becoming a value. A value is a fact; 
that is, it has a definite structure by virtue of which it is recog¬ 
nized and known. Plato would say that a value has an “ es¬ 
sence Aristotle would call it a “ form Whitehead would 
call it a “ structure ”; but all agree that it is the distinguishing 
thing about a value. Now this essence, form or structure of 
a value is its integrative potential. When an enjoyment mani¬ 
fests this characteristic, it is a value . 16 When one value dis¬ 
plays a greater potentiality than another, it is a greater value. 
Why should this be so ? Is it not because of the very nature of 
value itself, which is integration ? That distinguishing char¬ 
acteristic by virtue of which value is value must be regarded 
as supreme value. And this theology can confidently and 
with clear conscience denote as God, because that concept has 
always been used to symbolize the basic value structure of 
mankind. 

The traditional attribute of Creator fits in with the notion 
that fundamentally God is supreme value. There is definite 
ground for asserting that God so conceived is the most potent 
force or aspect of existence. Scientific theories of develop¬ 
ment, based upon the accumulating research of two centuries, 
testify to the fact that there is evidence of a tendency of pro¬ 
gressive integration in existence. God might be defined as 
that aspect of progressive integration in the universe which 

15 Here I acknowledge my heavy indebtedness to Professor Wieman, most of 
whose published works have been devoted to answering this question. 

16 Thomas Aquinas insists upon the “ connectedness of virtues ” ( Summa 
Theologica, VIII, 173 ff.). 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 139 

manifests itself on the human level in the growth of values. 
This does not assert that the universe throughout is God- 
controlled. As Borden Parker Bowne once said to his stu¬ 
dents, “ there is such a thing as getting too much God in the 
world.” But there is good warrant for asserting that there is 
a discernible drift of direction in cosmic processes. 17 A brief 
survey of the factual basis of this statement is in order. 

The exact sciences tell a story which, though incomplete in 
detail, is precise in outline and is probably familiar even to 
laymen. The ultimate unit of existence, whether energy or 
matter or both, is what it is because of its interrelationships. 
Electrons and protons unite to form atoms; atoms to form 
molecules; molecules, cells; cells, tissues; tissues, organs; or¬ 
gans, organisms. Here the social sciences take up the task and 
point out that organisms coalesce to produce societies of a 
graduating complexity. Man, the unit of society, is borne up 
by an ocean of interrelationships, physical and social alike. 
His health and happiness depend upon the establishment and 
maintenance of a stable, dynamic pattern of interaction called 
“ growth ” in which customs, ideas, inventions, religions and 
philosophies of all kinds are conditioning factors much as 
various brooks and streams pool their flow in a river. 

Nor does science stand alone in this conception of a di¬ 
rectional thrust in the universe. Modern philosophy, in the 
persons of S. Alexander, A. N. Whitehead, C. Lloyd Morgan, 
R. W. Sellars, Nicolai Hartmann, Henri Bergson and, to 
some extent, John Dewey, has been working out the broader 
philosophic implications of the position and has produced 
some profound results. It is safe to say that since the publi¬ 
cation of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 every great phi- 

17 I have developed this notion in some detail in “ Wanted: An Absolute,” 
Christian Century, Dec. 2, 1936, pp. 1606-9. 


140 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

losopher of the Western world has accepted some form of 
directional development as an ultimate fact. 

Thus we see that the notion of integration as the distin¬ 
guishing mark of value is in reality the distinguishing mark 
of a cosmic process which reaches down to the very elements 
of existence and streams up to man, supporting his entire 
being, and beyond him in the form of possibilities of greater 
values, some of which find expression in his dreams and 
ideals, others of which are doubtless unrecognized. The es¬ 
sence of creativity is the combination of existing materials in 
new patterns with the occasional result of discovering a new 
structure with an integrity of its own. Nor need this be left 
in the realm of abstraction. Friendship is an example of crea¬ 
tivity as truly as is the union of atoms of hydrogen and oxy¬ 
gen to produce a molecule of water. Social psychology is 
supplying us with abundant evidence that selves are social 
creations and actually exhibit new characteristics when placed 
in new situations. 18 

God so conceived is both immanent and transcendent. As 
the dynamic ground of creativity and emergence throughout 
existence he is immanent. He is Creator not only in the spe¬ 
cific sense of producing new structures such as life from mat¬ 
ter; but he invests with himself, as laws, the very nature of 
the actual or created continuum. 19 God as the law or founda¬ 
tion of value is, by definition, immanent in even the humblest 
values. Wherever there are values like health, harmony, un¬ 
derstanding, loyalty, friendship, justice, love, there is God. 

18 C. H. Cooley, Human Nature and Social Organization (New York: Charles 
Scribner’s Sons, 1902); G. H. Mead, The Philosophy of the Act (Chicago: Uni¬ 
versity of Chicago Press, 1938); C. W. Morris, Six Theories of Mind (Chicago: 
University of Chicago Press, 1932); the writings of Dr. Ellsworth Faris. 

19 This is a fundamental notion in S. Alexander’s distinction between “ deity ” 
and “ divine.” 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 141 

But to say that God is immanent in values is not to limit him 
to coexistence with all actual values. He is transcendent not 
only as creator of any experienced value but broods over or 
stretches beyond that value in the form of inherent possibili¬ 
ties. This is what Wieman has in mind when he defines God 
as that structure of existence and possibility which sustains 
and promotes greatest value. 20 All actual values are con¬ 
fronted by the fact of their incompleteness, their failure really 
to enter into the most profound kind of organic relationship 
with other values. Family love is a towering value, yet even 
it can be prevented from a full realization of its possibilities by 
the shortsighted parental policy of trying to treat the growing 
children as if they were babies, or by the equally shortsighted 
policy of setting family welfare above that of all other persons. 
In either case the radiance of the value is dimmed; its out¬ 
pouring in the larger communal life is choked up if not off. 
God is immanent in family love to the full reach of its value- 
hood ; he transcends it in the form of unrealized possibilities. 
His transcendence of all actual values can be summarized 
this way: God is the permanent possibility of greater value. 
Let us remember that, as such, he does not extend beyond 
existence as an attenuated something, a pale wraith, a feeble 
testimony to our incompleteness, nor even as a projection of 
thwarted desires, but rather he is actual possibility, that is, he 
has definite structure which can be and is incorporated in 
actual values in proportion as they realize the possibilities in¬ 
herent in them as participants in the inclusive system of value. 

As we turn to the four phrases which linked the traditional 
doctrine of God to the problems of human life and endeavor 
to determine what they mean in terms of the functional phi- 

20 The Wrestle of Religion with Truth (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1927); 
Issues of Life (New York: Abingdon Press, 1930); and other writings. 


142 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

losophy of value we might expect that they should lose some 
of their warmth. True enough, so long as God was regarded 
as celestial emperor, king or judge, all his attributes were pat¬ 
terned along the lines of human attributes. That this making 
of God in man’s image made God vitally, not to mention 
ominously, personal need not be denied. But there are other 
and more meaningful ways in which man’s dependence upon 
God and God’s profound meaning for human life can be 
warmly and richly symbolized. And, at least as I understand 
them, the traditional phrases — the will, justice, grace and 
love of God — are adequate and appropriate symbols of these 
meanings. 

The will of God denotes the structure of value wherever and 
whenever found. It indicates not only the factual nature of 
actual values but the real structure of their possibilities. 
Health, friendship, love, the welfare of a society are definite 
values because they have definite structures. Laws underlie 
them all. We cannot dictate the nature of any of them. We 
can only discover it in degree and adjust ourselves to it. We 
will have hypotheses or beliefs as to what this basic structure 
is and follow their leading, but reality as encountered in the 
life process speaks the last word; it pronounces judgments 
both on our beliefs and on our living. There is then ample 
evidence in the realm of value for asserting that value struc¬ 
ture, supreme value, has a precise character, both relevant to 
our experience and choices, yet objective to us; which is the 
fundamental meaning of the “ will of God.” 21 

The justice of God is shorn of both the caprice and the 
revenge which too often characterized its meaning in tradi- 

21 “ The purpose of God is the attainment of value in the temporal world.” — 
Whitehead, Religion in the Maying (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1926), 
p. 100. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 143 

tional theology. It calls attention to the fact that since God 
is the nature of value, whosoever would experience greater 
value must search for and adjust himself to God. There will 
not be, as there have not been, wanting those who will try 
to legislate regarding the meaning and character of value. 
Whoever does this will learn that an ancient warning was 
based upon experience: “ It is a fearful thing to fall into the 
hands of the living God.” After due allowance has been 
made for the symbolical character of the language, the stub¬ 
born, irreducible fact remains that we cannot dictate our 
own terms of life unless we want to take our exit in one glo¬ 
rious orgy of adolescent self-exhibitionism. We can have 
friends, experience love and brotherhood only when we hum¬ 
bly acknowledge the fact that the real meaning of these can 
be discovered in no other way than that of patient, and per¬ 
haps painful, searching. If we take some great ideal value like 
brotherhood of man or peace, it is at once obvious that we 
cannot actualize it either by simply desiring it or by inventing 
a panacea that glosses over relevant facts. If either value is 
achieved, attitudes toward persons and property must be 
changed until they tend to unify rather than divide mankind. 
This would require a re-education of most of us along very 
concrete lines and in terms of daily realities. I am trying to 
point out that any value whether great or small has an order 
or structure in its own being, and one who experiences it does 
so by conforming to that discovered character. 

The grace of God finds pungent expression in the dynamic 
nature of value. Not only is there evidence of development 
in biological species, but the fact of growth is discernible in 
the values of life. John Dewey, who cannot be accused of 
religious bias yet whose thought is logically related to all that 
has been said about the functional philosophy of value, insists 


144 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

that there is such a thing as the growth of good. “ A good is 
a good anyhow, but to reflection those goods approve them¬ 
selves, whether labeled beauty or truth or righteousness, 
which steady, vitalize and expand judgments in creation of 
new goods and conservation of old goods.” 22 Although 
Dewey keeps goods pluralized, I submit that this statement is 
fundamentally a plain avowal of the existence of a system of 
goods which is dynamic and progressive. Any structure of 
things or goods that conserves the old while steadily increas¬ 
ing it by the addition of the new can correctly be called a 
dynamic system. Wieman makes a cardinal assertion of the 
growth of good. He addresses himself to the task of describ¬ 
ing the process of progressive integration which is operative 
on the human level in the form of shared values, and which, 
as possibilities, stretches out into the unknown and unimag¬ 
inable future. This process issues in a growth of good in so 
far as man makes satisfactory adjustment to it. Wieman de¬ 
scribes both the nature and the grace of God when he writes: 
“. . . there is operative in our midst a power which makes 
for the greatest good by way of increasing our oneness, which 
way, however, is not our way, for we sin against it, struggle 
against it, and must find it out by experiment. This increas¬ 
ing oneness that makes for the greatest good is not our work, 
but we cannot rise to greater good in any other way save by it. 
This power is sovereign over us in the sense that we must meet 
the conditions which it imposes or else suffer disaster.” 23 

In this connection it may be worth while to draw a distinc¬ 
tion between types of interdependence and the growth of 
good. Interdependence is not necessarily a good. It may be 
like the wolf’s teeth — “ The better to eat you with, my 

22 Experience and Nature, p. 417. 

23 Is There a God? p. 163; cf. also p. 124. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 145 

dear.” The profound interdependence among the nations of 
this modern world causes very little rejoicing these days. It 
reminds one of the method of dueling formerly used by cer¬ 
tain American Indians. The antagonists had their left arms 
securely bound together and knives placed in their free hands. 
They fought until one was dead. Frequently both were 
killed. The other type of interrelatedness is the growth of 
good embodied in the principle of love. Its genius lies in this: 
it is a sharing of the best that one has and finds without 
thought of restraint or reward, and a continual refining in the 
fires of life of what one thinks best. 

There is nothing inevitable about the growth of good. It 
does not force itself upon man. Its growth depends upon the 
willingness and wisdom which man exhibits in his endeavor 
to cause the increasing interdependence among men to pro¬ 
mote rather than destroy the actualities and potentialities of 
existing values. But the important point relevant to the grace 
of God is that he stands ready and willing to assist man in this 
endeavor. But man must realize that “ the chief end of man 
is to glorify God and enjoy him forever ” before the resources 
of God become, to some degree, available. 

The love of God — his goodness yearning for man and 
striving to infuse man with itself — receives powerful justifi¬ 
cation in the philosophy of value under consideration. God 
is as real as health, as integral to life as society, as steadfast as 
deathless loyalties, as warmly radiant as friendship and love. 
These and all other values known to man are expressions of 
God in life. But there is much in life that is not value, is even 
violently hostile to value, such as disease, pain, ignorance, and 
the divisive attitude and practice of selfishness whether by 
individuals or groups. When God encounters these, the vivid 
words of the Psalmist leap to mind: “ Our God is a living 


146 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

fire.” The struggle between supreme value and disvalue, 
both as positive evil and as arrested values, is on and ceases 
only when the loyalty and devotion of the whole personality 
is given to God or supreme value. Nor should this fact occa¬ 
sion surprise. It flows from the notion that values grow by 
integrating themselves with other values. 

This passionate cohesion among values is the rational basis 
of the Christian’s insistence that God is love. For Jesus, it was 
unthinkable that one who was not at peace with his brother 
could worship God. He would not permit men to put the 
values of life in separate pigeonholes for the simple reason 
that the good, the abundant life requires recognition of, loy¬ 
alty to, and exemplification of their organic character. 

Supreme value (God) is not a passive mountainside up 
which men climb. Rather it is encountered in the fleeting 
experience of some value and the uncontrollable desire for 
more; it is the portions of truth, beauty and goodness that we 
know yearning for full realization of themselves; it is the ac¬ 
cidental or incidental act of kindness and compassion plead¬ 
ing for the status of enduring habit, or, better still, sensitive 
custom. God is within, yet beyond, life. He is both the mean¬ 
ing of righteousness and the power which makes for right¬ 
eousness. He is not all of life but his nature determines the 
direction in which men move who aspire to the abundant 
life. 

2. The Doctrine of Salvation . The logical structure of the 
doctrine of salvation can be described rather simply. On the 
one hand, there is the sinfulness of man, on the other, the per¬ 
fect goodness of God. These are both contradictory and uni¬ 
versal; that is, man and sin are coextensive; so also God and 
perfect goodness. There is a single bridge spanning this 
otherwise unbridged and unbridgeable gulf. It is the love of 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 147 

God revealed in the person of Christ through whom it is pos¬ 
sible for man to be redeemed from sin. Man must choose 
God in Christ if he would be saved. Salvation, then, denotes 
deliverance from the state of sinfulness. 

Christian theologians have argued loud and long — sus¬ 
piciously like the six blind men of Hindustan — about the de¬ 
tails of the doctrine. Augustine believed that the action in 
the process of salvation is wholly from God to man. Man by 
an act of faith can believe in and appropriate to himself the 
immeasurable grace of God. Luther, Calvin and the Bar- 
thian theologians follow Augustine on this point. John Wes¬ 
ley, following Arminius, a Dutch theologian, developed the 
notion that perfection is possible to man, and even to this day 
aspirants to the ministry of the church he founded are asked 
the staggering question, “ Are you going on to perfection ? ” 
Important as such details have been historically, we shall not 
spend time with them. The central notion is that salvation, 
meaning deliverance from sinfulness, can secure genuine sup¬ 
port from the functional philosophy of value. 

First, of course, it is important to determine what sinfulness 
means in terms of the new setting. Three separate though not 
unrelated answers can be given: (1) Sinfulness means incon¬ 
stant loyalty to supreme value, (2) insubordinate loyalties, or 
(3) refusal to recognize and abide by the implications for life 
of the organic structure of value. 

Examples of these have been cited in the preceding section. 
Others equally pertinent and universal can be sketched. One 
of the most widespread forms of sinfulness today is that type 
of patriotism which gives supreme loyalty to country. It is a 
sin to award supreme loyalty to any institution, whether fam¬ 
ily, church or state. Loyalty to supreme value does not turn 
one away from loyalty to these, providing they are regarded 


148 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

as parts of a larger whole, as organs in an organism of value. 
That there is real difficulty in keeping institutional loyalties 
from claiming the toga of supreme loyalty is patent to all. 
Whether it is hopeless, an “ impossible possibility,” to use 
Reinhold Niebuhr’s phrase, is another question. Certain it is 
that the logic of institutionalism 24 is the constant foe of value 
growth. By logic of institutionalism I mean the tendency of 
any institution to “ set,” to ossify, to “ coralize ” and form a 
rigid reef. To alter the figure, an institution, like an object 
in motion or at rest, is governed by a law of inertia which dic¬ 
tates that this mode of behavior shall continue. When the 
logic of institutionalism dominates an institution it loses the 
capacity of self-criticism. It creates “ safe ” men and places 
them in positions of leadership. It moves by momentum 
rather than acceleration; it coasts, but cannot pick up speed. 
But when the needs which brought the institution into ex¬ 
istence change through growth or other alteration, the logic 
of institutionalism puts on a splendid exemplification of what 
our pious ancestors meant by personal devil. It lashes out 
with epithets and personal recriminations at all who suggest 
that it does not meet existing needs. It deprecates the integ¬ 
rity of the critic. It scoffs at the possibility that he is making 
his suggestion in good faith as one who honestly believes that 
the institution can be modified to meet the needs. Tolerance 
dies of strangulation when an established institution is chal¬ 
lenged as to its efficiency. The powers that be decree a state 
of martial law in the realm of the spirit and are ready to throw 
into concentration camps all who do not acquiesce in every 
detail to the dictates of the institution. 

Yet institutions are essential to the growth of value. In no 

24 Paul Tillich and others use the vivid concept “ demonic ” to denote the 
same phenomenon. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 149 

other way can the social nature of the self discover, cultivate 
and use its capacities. The meaning of value, greater value or 
supreme value cannot be related to human life except through 
those activities in and through which life grows. Family, 
school, church, community, nation, world — there can be no 
growth of value for man except in terms of some such social 
organizations. But these organizations are not amorphous 
masses. They have, must have, determinate structures ex¬ 
hibited in historical antecedents, in laws, rights, obligations, 
rewards and punishments. But when these determinate 
structures become deterministic, become ends in themselves, 
then the negation of value begins. Plainly, then, sinfulness 
does not derive from membership in social organizations, but 
it is the only adequate way to describe loyalty to an institution 
which strives to be an end in itself. Obviously the same rea¬ 
soning applies to a person who regards himself as the sole end 
of his striving. In other words, sinfulness upon examination 
turns out to be a distorted interpretation of health, friendship, 
loyalty, love, etc., which in their pure form are true values. 

Salvation, for the functional philosophy of value, continues 
to denote deliverance from sinfulness. That man is saved 
who both sees supreme value (the perfect goodness of God) in 
and beyond existence and dedicates himself to its totality. He 
is on the road toward salvation whose first step in resolving a 
choice is sincerely to raise the question: In what direction 
lies supreme value ? “ Which is the way where light dwell- 
eth ? ” He is well along the road to the abundant life who 
realizes that the dynamic nature of the values which warm 
and enrich his daily living (the love of God) is aiding him 
out of all proportion to his own efforts. 

3. The Doctrine of Christ. To be exact, several Christian 
doctrines deal with the meaning of Christ. But there is a 


150 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

single point of view implicit in all, namely, that Christ is the 
revelation of God. The New Testament, of course, is solidly 
behind this conception. Historians have pointed out the proc¬ 
ess whereby the Jewish concept “Messiah” came to be 
equated with the Greek concept “ Logos.” Although there 
is a real difference in their original meanings, the fact re¬ 
mains that both denote someone whose close relationship 
with God makes him the leader, the savior, of men. The 
great doctrines with christological bearing — trinity, incarna¬ 
tion and person — are later and meticulously precise logical 
formulations of this same fundamental point. The net result 
of their collective endeavor is to explain and try to validate the 
position which the several preceding centuries of Christians 
had unanimously accorded Jesus. The rhetorical phrases of 
the Nicean formula, affirming that Jesus was “ very God of 
very God . . . and was made man,” are an attempt to render 
logically explicit his simple statement, “ He that hath seen 
me hath seen the Father.” Paul averred, “ I can do all things 
through him that strengthened! me.” Paul’s Christology 
might fairly be stated in two sentences: When we see Christ 
we see God. When we have faith in Christ we live in Christ 
and Christ in us. “Faith is a spiritual point of contact, a 
channel through which Christ’s spirit flows into us and makes 
us like him.” 25 These and many other sentiments drawn 
from the New Testament catch and express the belief, com¬ 
mon both to all Christians of that day and to the later Chris- 
tologies, that Jesus is the revelation of God. 

The functional philosophy of value can be applied to this 
doctrine in much the same way as to the two discussed earlier. 
We may, even must, continue to affirm that Jesus is the clear- 

25 B. W. Robinson, The Life of Paul (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 
1918), p. 235. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 151 

est revelation of God that we have. Several elements of 
change are apparent in this wording. For example, whereas 
all traditional christological doctrines assert the uniqueness 
of Jesus, this one affirms his supremacy. Classical formula¬ 
tions make redundant use of the notion that he is the one, the 
only, the ultimate, the final revelation of God. He may be 
such, but from the perspective of an empirical philosophy of 
value conclusive evidence will not be available until the last 
man is dead. But it is possible to make a strong case for the 
doctrine of Christ as we have stated it. That our evidence is 
not exhaustive goes without saying. We know all too little 
about him and much of the source material is hemmed in by 
puzzling critical questions, but — and this is the significant 
point — wherever we turn in his life and teachings we expe¬ 
rience a fine integrity born of his devotion to an insight into 
“ the meaning of God in human experience.” 

It seems, to me at least, unnecessary to make more than 
briefest mention of those battle-scarred doctrines that deal 
with the physical, psychical and volitional nature of Jesus. 
That such doctrines were once integral to theology is obvious. 
That it is possible to validate them either as historical facts 
or as logically necessary is wholly another problem. So far as 
the functional philosophy of value is concerned, they simply 
are unimportant, unless insisted upon, in which case they are 
likely to become examples of a vicious form of magic. So 
far as I can see the most that can be said for them is this: If 
Jesus had to be a unique manifestation of God, symbolized in 
the virgin birth, and if his personality had to be a unique 
synthesis of deity and humanity in order to achieve his pro¬ 
found interpretation of God, then so be it. 

Obviously the trouble lies in the “ if ” clause. Many will 
agree with Principal Micklem that the doctrines contained in 


152 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

it are not hypothetical in any sense. 26 Yet historical valida¬ 
tion of them is far from conclusive. When theologians at¬ 
tempt to transfer these doctrinal assertions from the assump- 
tional clause they must keep clearly in mind the fact that 
the only justification for the transfer is the logical necessity 
of systematic theology. And it might be well to see with 
equal clarity that logical necessity is not necessarily inter¬ 
changeable with historical fact. 

Jesus’ insight into the nature of God is conveyed both by his 
teachings and by his life. It revolves around a threefold in¬ 
terpretation of love which for him is the mode through which 
God expresses himself. Jesus insisted upon (1) the central¬ 
ity of love in the universe; (2) the absolute claim of love upon 
man; (3) the validation of love in the sphere of action, of 
conduct, in experienced consequences of ethical and religious 
choices. 

The simple faith that “ with God all things are possible ” 27 
is the doorway through which we enter into Jesus’ conception 
of God. His is the prophetic belief that God is the purpose in 
all things; that whatever happens is either determined or al¬ 
lowed by God. God is the actual cause of all good and the 
potential master of all evil — and this because he is perfect 
goodness and love. Human concepts of good and evil are 
vague attempts to grasp God’s nature, but he transcends them: 
“ for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, 
and sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust ”; 28 also, “ if ye, 
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, 
how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give 
good things to them that ask him ? ” 29 Jesus uses some vivid 

26 What Is the Faith? (Nashville, Tenn.: Cokesbury Press, 1937), Preface. 

27 Matt. 19:26. 

28 Matt. 5:45. 


29 Matt. 7:11. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 153 

metaphors to describe the centrality of love in the universe: 
“ Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings ? And not one 
of them is forgotten before God. But even the very hairs of 
your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of 
more value than many sparrows.” 80 “ Wherefore, if God so 
clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is 
cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye 
of little faith?” 31 

The immediate implication of this conception of God is 
that love lays an absolute claim upon man. “ Be ye therefore 
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” 32 
And “ the great commandment ” is, “ Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy mind.” 33 To this end man’s desires, his will, 
must be transformed. The motives for action must be scru¬ 
tinized and relocated in the Kingdom of God which is 
“ within you.” They must unite rather than divide. They 
must serve love rather than hate. 

The degree to which man recognizes the claim of love is 
determined by his conduct. In the tremendous Judgment 
Day scene sketched in Matthew 25:31-46 the criterion for 
dividing men is what they have done when confronted by 
the fact of human need. The only satisfactory testimony to 
devotion to God is the presence of works of love. That this 
leads to conflict and sacrifice Jesus knew all too well. 34 But 
the Kingdom of God is open only to those whose lives are ex¬ 
pressions of His love for men. A man at variance with his 

30 Luke 12:6-7. 

31 Matt. 6:30. 

32 Matt. 5:48. 

33 Matt. 22:37. 

34 See “ Jesus and the Pharisees,” by Gregory Vlastos ( Christendom, Winter 
Number, 1936), for a clear, concise presentation of this point. 


154 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

brother is wasting his sacrifice if he places it on the altar be¬ 
fore being reconciled with his brother. The revolutionary 
nature of the Kingdom of God is nowhere better portrayed 
than as the reversal of the value judgments by which un¬ 
godly living proceeds, for in this kingdom “ the last shall be 
first,” 35 and “ whosoever of you will be chiefest, shall be serv¬ 
ant of all,” 36 and “ by this shall all men know that ye are my 
disciples, if ye have love one to another.” 37 The deeds which 
manifest love range all the way from offering a cup of cold 
water in the name of a disciple, through laying down one’s 
life for his friends, to loving enemies. Love means not alone 
the absence of resentment; it means also the forgiving love 
which does not seek or desire reprisal. This }esus both taught 
and practiced. 

For the functional philosophy of value the central fact of 
the universe is that of progressive integration because it sus¬ 
tains and promotes greatest value. Jesus, more clearly than 
anyone else, apprehended the nature and meaning of the 
value structure of the universe. His application of the con¬ 
cept love, inclusive as it is of the related notions of will, justice 
and grace, is both our most sensitive and our most accurate 
approach to the fact of God in the world. Nowhere else in 
the universe has the value structure which is God risen in 
such compelling grandeur as in Jesus’ life. What he felt and 
discerned as fundamental fact he taught as truth to men. His 
life and teachings, therefore, are the clearest revelation of 
God that we have. Nor is this statement a denial of the 
prerogative of his saviorhood, though the traditional pattern 
is changed. Men who believe that when they see Jesus they 
see God, and who live by this belief, are saved, are related, not 
in any magical but in a profoundly religio-ethical sense, to 

35 Matt. 19:30. 36 Mark 10:44. 37 John 13:35. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 155 

God. He who dwells in Christ and in whom Christ dwells 
is saved by God in Christ. 

But whoever aspires to this salvation must commit him¬ 
self without reservation to God. He must be willing to ac¬ 
cept the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness as of 
supreme importance. He must eagerly strive to weave all 
his discrete loyalties into the one supreme loyalty to God. If 
some loyalties tend to disrupt the pattern, they must be dis¬ 
ciplined or discarded. One cannot walk with God in Christ 
except he bear a cross which would seem to grow heavier 
rather than lighter the longer he carries it were it not for the 
simple fact that the sustaining power of God shares with him 
the burden. 

We have repeatedly insisted that value is as value does. 
Value is an empirical relationship and is, therefore, a con¬ 
tinuing one. Any particular judgment of value is validated 
to the degree that its actional consequences come to pass. 
Jesus’ criterion, “ By their fruits ye shall know them,” has 
already been referred to several times. This is his yardstick 
for measuring the degree to which love has motivated the 
actions of men. We who wrestle with the multitude of 
personal problems which tend to decentralize life energies, 
and with the social problems which split mankind into war¬ 
ring camps, can do no better than to wrestle in his name and 
for his sake. If, and to the degree that, the supreme loyalty 
of our lives is to God as revealed in Christ, we shall be able 
to lay, with peace and confidence, our actions as offerings on 
his altar. 

TENTATIVENESS AND CERTAINTY IN THEOLOGY 

Two endeavors have thus far in this chapter occupied our 
attention: (1) the functional philosophy of value; (2) its 


156 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

implications for theology, stated in terms of both traditional 
doctrines and present needs. One further task remains, 
namely, that of determining more exactly those aspects or 
phases of theological procedure, some of which are properly 
regarded as sources of certainty and others of tentativeness. 
Four such are clearly distinguishable. Both logically and 
chronologically prior to any particular judgment of value 
is the consciousness of value which has been discussed briefly 
in the preceding pages. It will be sufficient, at this juncture, 
simply to say that it denotes our realization that the facts 
of better and worse stretch out ahead of any and every choice. 
This realization is a deposit of past experience and the frame 
of reference which gives credence to any particular judg¬ 
ment of value. It is, then, a priori to the individual judg¬ 
ment and is one of the sources of certainty. 38 

The second phase of the valuational process is that of 
rendering the consciousness of value rational; that is, of 
placing it in such form that it can be readily articulated in 
the form of value judgments. This means an endeavor to 
determine the nature, meaning and test of value; in other 
words, its metaphysics and epistemology. The functional 
philosophy of value which has been occupying our attention 
is one such endeavor. It presupposes the consciousness of 
value in life and tries to isolate the essential aspects of value. 
Manifestly it must be held tentatively, that is, as the best 
formulation we have, yet answerable for its permanent valid¬ 
ity to all future empirical experiences. 

The third phase is the judgment of value based upon the 
philosophy of value which in turn is an articulation of the 
consciousness of value. The judgment is an endeavor to pre¬ 
dict the course of the consequences by bringing the beliefs 

38 Cf. Chap. V. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 157 

about value to bear in the act of choosing. It is characterized 
by tentativeness as is its parent, the philosophy of value. 

The concluding phase of the valuational procedure is the 
method by which the truth of a judgment is determined. 
Needless to say, the method used is not unrelated to the 
structure of the philosophy of value. If this, for example, 
holds that the real locus of value is some type of supernatural 
reality, it would then be useless to attempt to measure it by 
an empirical criterion, such as the method of observation 
and reason. Yet there is no other way of evaluating a judg¬ 
ment which deals with empirical facts. Value theorists must, 
therefore, choose between two alternatives. Either value is 
irrelevant to life, in which case value judgments would not 
be made; or value is a conditioning factor in empirical ex¬ 
istence and both explains the presence of the consciousness 
of value and produces consequences many if not most of 
which can be observed and related to past and future experi¬ 
ences through value judgments. So far as I know no one 
has ever chosen the first alternative. 

John Oman’s supernaturalism locates absolute value in 
supernatural reality, to be sure, but this continually impreg¬ 
nates nature to produce relative values, which comprise the 
subject matter of ethics. Although Hartmann, following 
Plato, conceives values as essences which form a resplendent 
rainbow over existence, he insists that one ineradicable char¬ 
acteristic of all values is the “ ought-to-be ” which when ap¬ 
prehended by man translates itself into the “ ought-to-do.” 
For both thinkers, then, the method of evaluating value 
judgments must of necessity be empirical. We have seen 
how the functional philosophy of value which views value 
as an integral aspect of existence frankly says that value 
judgments have to do with relations within nature that are 


158 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

different from other relations only in degree of complexity, 
rather than in kind, and that, for it, the criterion of all em¬ 
pirical judgments is the only one capable of passing on the 
validity of value judgments. 

There is therefore nothing tentative about the method of 
observation and reason as the criterion for validating value 
judgments. It is a source of genuine certainty, not alone be¬ 
cause it utilizes the logical structure of “ if-then ” which un¬ 
derlies logical certitude, but also because it recognizes and 
deals with values as aspects of nature, of empirical reality, 
underlying the primal consciousness of value and validating 
or invalidating judgments of value. 

Theology as that aspect of religion which endeavors to 
relate a philosophy of value to the perplexities and the in¬ 
sights of human life can scarcely avoid accepting the various 
phases of valuational procedure and the tentativeness and 
certainty which characterize them. But theology is more 
than thought about value; it is the attempt to translate such 
thought into daily living. Therefore “ consciousness of 
value ” becomes reverence for value which is the distinguish¬ 
ing characteristic of the religious attitude. A theological 
system is a comprehensive, coherent and precise attempt to 
articulate the specific meanings of reverence for value. It 
utilizes commonly accepted symbols not alone in order to 
explain the nature of value but especially to convey rever¬ 
ence for value. Hence the value structure of philosophy be¬ 
comes the Father God of religious devotion; the nature of 
value becomes the “ love that will not let me go ”; the hier¬ 
archical structure of values becomes the will and purpose of 
“ Him in whom we live and move and have our being.” All 
theological doctrines or religious beliefs, such as those dis¬ 
cussed earlier in this chapter, are attempts to focus both rev- 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Theology 159 

erence for value and concrete ideas about value upon specific 
areas of human living. For its vitality this enterprise re¬ 
quires that certainty born of reverence for value and tenta¬ 
tiveness born of beliefs about its nature and relevance to 
specific situations be held in a polar relationship. Facts 
drawn from reflection as well as life warrant both; each 
without the other becomes meaningless. 

Succeeding chapters will deal (1) with the way in which 
religion endeavors to deepen reverence for value, namely, 
worship; and (2) with the way it tests the validity of beliefs 
articulating this reverence, that is, ethical conduct. 


EX 


SYNTHESIS OF TENTATIVENESS 
AND CERTAINTY IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 

ANY READERS are doubtless prepared to insist 



that the polarity between tentativeness and cer¬ 


tainty, however valuable for theology, breaks 


down in the area of worship. For them, worship is coexten¬ 
sive with complete conviction. When conviction falters or 
fails, worship is at an end. Tentativeness in any form, they 
conclude, destroys the basis of worship. What answer can 
be made to such an objection ? 

Of course, its primary weakness is the equation of tenta¬ 
tiveness with skepticism. In an earlier section the fallacy 
of identifying these two was pointed out. Tentativeness and 
skepticism are different not in degree but in kind; and for 
several reasons. Whereas skepticism possesses neither point 
of departure nor sense of direction, tentativeness has both. 
Skepticism is the rather ungraceful abandonment of the 
search for truth; tentativeness is the insistent pursuit of truth, 
albeit sobered by the fact that the future is really unknown 
and unknowable except as it ceases to be future and becomes 
present. Skepticism eyes experience and empirical knowl¬ 
edge, sees their weaknesses, irrationalities and fragmentary 
character, and declines to accept them as safe guides into the 
surf of breaking presents; tentativeness likewise surveys ex¬ 
perience and empirical knowledge, admits that life would 
be less hazardous if they were more reliable, yet sees in them 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 161 

not only the sole guides we have, but also the guides that can 
be relied upon (even though their method is essentially that 
of trial and error) to lead us wherever it is possible for us 
to go. 

Whoever continues to insist that tentativeness so conceived 
means the death of worship chooses to ignore certain atti¬ 
tudes which have always characterized significant worship. 
One such is expectancy: witness the worry-worn disciples 
waiting in the upper room before Pentecost; the mystics 
anxiously, eagerly treading the via negativa, leaving behind 
all deliverances of sense, all judgments, all valuations, even 
consciousness of self, hoping thereby to find reabsorption 
into the Whole; the tired farmer, business man or housewife 
going to church because “ sometimes it helps.” The wor¬ 
shiper bows humbly, joyfully, reverently before a great and 
glorious Potency. How it will touch him he does not know. 
He only knows that he waits before it as a servant awaits the 
bidding of his master, or better, as a child in need awaits the 
approach of a loving parent. He who worships listens that 
he may hear, looks that he may see, feels after something if 
haply he may touch it, asks that he may receive, seeks that 
he may find, knocks that it may be opened unto him. He 
is, in fine, endeavoring to discover and ally himself with the 
fuller nature of the environing Reality “ in whom he lives 
and moves and has his being.” 

Groping is another fundamental characteristic of the wor¬ 
shipful attitude. The skeptic cannot worship because he 
has no sense of direction; neither can one worship whose 
heart is hardened by the conceit that he is in conscious pos¬ 
session of final truth. The worshiper cries with the troubled 
soul of an earlier day, “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine 
unbelief.” 


162 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

The universality of these and related attitudes in all his¬ 
toric forms and experiences of worship belies the notion that 
tentativeness, as I have described it, is even alien to worship, 
much less fundamentally opposed to it. The thesis of this 
chapter is that the principle of polarity between tentativeness 
and certainty is as essential to significant worship as we have 
found it to be to theology. In order to clarify and extend 
this thesis, let us essay two tasks: first, a careful consideration 
of the nature and aim of worship in general; second, a de¬ 
scription of the function of worship in religious living when 
this is guided by the functional philosophy of value. 

THE NATURE AND AIM OF WORSHIP 

Evelyn Underhill writes that the only possible formula for 
worship is this: “ I come to adore His splendor, and fling my¬ 
self and all that I have at His feet.” 1 This statement suggests 
an indispensable characteristic of worship: Worship is an 
act of adoration, an act in which the part confronts the 
whole. Through this act the individual gathers himself into 
an emotional and, in so far as possible, a cognitive unity for 
the single and express purpose of confronting and adoring 
the Whole. “ I the imperfect adore my Perfect,” is Emer¬ 
son’s incisive way of describing the matter. The central aim 
of worship is adoration. It can and does have many impor¬ 
tant ethical as well as psychological and physiological con¬ 
sequences, but these are by-products rather than end-consid¬ 
erations. One does not worship in order that he may be a 
better man. He worships because he has caught a fleeting 
glimpse of the truth, beauty, goodness, and love resident in 
life (in his own or someone else’s experience) and is im¬ 
pelled by a power more than human to offer up thanksgiv- 

1 Worship (New York: Harper & Bros., 1937), p. 9. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 163 

ing for them. That this attitude and experience of adora¬ 
tion inevitably result in greater sensitivity and receptivity to 
God, the value structure of the universe, and thereby deter¬ 
mine ethical choices to a greater degree, is at once apparent. 
Man needs God — that at least is obvious. But he does not 
worship primarily because of recognition of this need, but 
rather because he desires to commit himself “ body, mind, 
and soul ” to Him whose meanings he has encountered in ex¬ 
perience. 

Lest we reach or seem to reach the conclusion that worship 
is merely man’s approach to God, it would be well to recall 
the fact that since Augustine the Christian tradition has 
steadily insisted that worship is much more than man’s smug¬ 
glings. Miss Underhill is true both to Augustine’s insight 
and to her own convictions when she writes this vigorous 
warning: “ It [worship] is, in fact, a revelation, proportional 
to the capacity of a creature, of something wholly other than 
our finite selves, and not deducible from our finite experi¬ 
ence: the splendor and distinctness of God. Therefore the 
easy talk of the pious naturalist about man’s approach to 
God is both irrational — indeed plainly impudent — and ir¬ 
reverent; unless the priority of God’s approach to man be 
kept in mind.” 2 

Worship, then, in the traditional Christian sense, is both 
centered upon God and inspired by him. It is, in short, the 
response of man to the meanings of God in human experi¬ 
ence, to borrow again Dr. W. E. Hocking’s famous phrase. 
Consider Whitehead’s description of religion: “ Religion is 
the vision of something which stands beyond, behind and 

2 Ibid., p. 6. Cf. W. H. Cadman’s statement in Christian Worship, N. Mick- 
lem, ed. (London: Clarendon Press, 1936), p. 67: “Christian worship is at once 
the word of God and the obedient response thereto.” 


164 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

within the passing flux of immediate things; something 
which is real and yet waiting to be realized; something 
which is a remote possibility and yet the greatest of present 
facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes and 
yet that eludes apprehension; something whose possession is 
the final good and yet is beyond all reach; something which 
is the ultimate ideal and the hopeless quest.” 3 

If this is an accurate description of religion, or better still, 
to the degree that it is such, the psychologically as well as 
chronologically primary religious response is one of worship 
rather than reflection or ethical conduct. 4 Worship is man’s 
reaction to experienced goods, favorable circumstances and 
enriching experiences: which reaction is not a reveling in 
the concrete individuality of the experienced goods, favors 
and values, but is rather an adoring appreciation of their 
superhuman sources. 5 That the modes of expression utilized 
are conditioned by the cultural status of the worshiping 
group is made plain by a study of the history of religions. 
But beneath and giving validity to the variety of ceremonials 
is the fundamental and single motif of worship. That wor¬ 
ship may be cheap and tawdry is at once apparent. The 
validity of the standard used in valuation determines the ob¬ 
jective worth of the worship reaction. The truer the philoso¬ 
phy of value (whether articulated or not) embedded in the 
theology implicit in worship, the greater and more enduring 
is the worth of that worship. 6 But however much worship 
is dependent for worthfulness upon an adequate philosophy 

8 Science and the Modern World, p. 275. 

4 Cf. F. von Hiigel, Selected Letters (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1927), 
p. 261. 

6 Cf. W. R. Inge, Christian Ethics and Modern Problems (New York: G. P. 
Putnam’s Sons, 1930), p. 27: “Homage to the ultimate values is the worship of 
God.” 

6 Cf. Underhill, op. cit., pp. 60, 340-41. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 165 

of value, one of its essential characteristics continues to be 
that of an act of adoration. 

Worship, so conceived, demands what Dean Sperry calls 
“ authentic sincerity ” 7 — which is infinitely broader than 
good intentions, meaning, in fact, “ a self that has been in¬ 
tegrated.” 8 Miss Underhill implies this in her vivid phrase, 
“ fling myself and all that I have.” We may say that, almost 
by definition, there is no place in worship for deception, cant 
and hypocrisy. Worship is not forced upon man whether 
or no. Man need not adore God. He is not compelled to 
lift himself as a unit in an act of gratitude. A fair example 
of what our fathers meant by a “ lost soul ” is one who ex¬ 
periences the goods of life and regards them either as purely 
his own creations or as a miserable portion of his just due. 
This interpretation does not necessarily mean a preachment 
of quietism, which some claim is an indirect, if not a direct, 
result of worship. It is pertinent to insist that those who 
regard worship in this light recognize the sharp distinction 
that exists between preachments of quietism on the one 
hand, and admonitions and practices stressing humility on 
the other. The ethical seers of all ages have combated forms 
of worship which enshrined such preachments by advancing 
other forms of worship stressing both the glory of God (or 
the moral law or the correct order) and the humility of man. 
This is the logic of religious discovery. Worship is born of 
appreciation of the values either actually encountered or 
seen to be implicit, therefore possible, in life. As such it may 
point with equally clear cogency toward sanctioning, modi¬ 
fying or overthrowing accepted modes of behavior. That 
the practices of worship, excepting always those periods 

7 Reality in Worship (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1925), p. 221. 

8 Ibid., p. 205. 


166 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

when they have been motivated by renewed ethical insight, 
have invariably sanctioned the existing order of things is 
better explained by the inertia of traditional patterns of con¬ 
duct, especially those utilized in releasing high emotional 
tensions born of crises, than by the nature of worship itself. 
Worship is as dynamic or static, progressive or regressive, as 
the philosophy of value which lies at the heart of it. 

While Dr. Von Ogden Vogt would doubtless agree that 
worship is an act of adoration, he suggests another and, at 
first glance, a more earthy definition of it: “ To praise and 
celebrate life, not merely this good fortune or delivery from 
that distress, but the memory of all things, the hope of all 
things, life entire and complete, to praise God and to cele¬ 
brate his goodness, this is worship.” 9 

Although this characterization more patently fits ad¬ 
vanced cultures, it calls attention to the synthetic function 
of worship which is apparent in even the most primitive 
forms of religious ceremonials. For the worship of primi¬ 
tive man celebrates the vertical as well as the horizontal na¬ 
ture of life. Unquestionably it begins with the horizontal, 
with the endeavor to unite the individual with his group by 
calling attention to the communal nature of life processes — 
birth, growth, food supply and social relationships. But 
rather than resting content with a comprehensive view of 
the life enterprise, the worship ceremonial calls attention to 
certain vertical or perpendicular aspects of life. It delivers 
the celebrants from the atomism of the present by its use of 
tradition, scripture and other symbols. The spirits and gods 
of the group, as well as its heroes, seers and saviors (thought 
to possess superhuman powers after death) mediated by 
“ old tidings,” legends and scripture, become vivid realities 

9 Modern Worship (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927), p. 7. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 167 

in the service of worship. The richly symbolic content of 
vesture, recitations and actions derives from and is hal¬ 
lowed by its rootage in tradition. Although the concepts 
“ spirit ” and “ gods ” are relatively late arrivals in religious 
thought, the reality indicated by them has been ever with 
man. For there were aspects of his environment over which 
he had no actual control: rainfall, climate, disease, storms, 
etc. It is a short step from the recognition of superhuman 
powers to the conception of supernatural beings. 10 When 
and by whom this momentous step was taken in the multi¬ 
form religious traditions of the world, we have no way of 
knowing, but that it was taken and that because of it reality 
was divided into two categories — natural and supernatural 
— is fairly well agreed upon by historians of religion. 11 For 
our present purpose its importance lies in its explicit and im¬ 
plicit insistence that the life process is surcharged with mean¬ 
ings that are both objective to man and yet relative to him. 
The function of worship, then, is not only to integrate or 
synthesize the individual with his group, and the existent 
group with its ancestors, but is likewise to dramatize the vital 
interrelations of the human and the divine, the communal 
and the cosmic. 

Wherever we encounter the act of worship, whether in the 
primitive dancing around his totem symbol, or in the so¬ 
phisticate bowing before the miracle of the mass, or in the 
pantheist singing paeans of praise to nature, it invariably dis¬ 
plays three component parts. If and to the extent that any 
one is absent or minimized, the mood and value of worship 
are either impoverished or entirely lacking. (1) A belief 

10 A. E. Haydon, Man’s Search for the Good Life (New York: Harper & 
Bros., 1937)* PP- 138 

11 Ibid., chaps. 5, 6. 


168 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

in the existence and relevance of an objective reality which 
man can choose to adore; (2) a profound consciousness of 
need, of inadequacy and incompleteness, on the part of man; 
(3) a system of symbols embedded in a dramatic ritual which 
surrounds the worshiper with vivid suggestions of the verti¬ 
cal as well as the horizontal character of life, the undiscov¬ 
ered as well as the known meanings of God which may yet 
be experienced and enjoyed by “ the humble servant of the 
way.” 

It is well to recall that the essential genius of worship is 
to be found in the fact that it weaves these component parts 
into the organic unity of an act: dance, liturgy, ritual and 
pageant. The aim of worship is synthetic rather than ana¬ 
lytic, unitive rather than divisive. It takes the arts, sciences 
and philosophies which at other times are separately pursued 
each for its own sake and consecrates them to the task of 
relating man to God. It accepts and utilizes reflection as 
well as emotion, reason as well as faith, the known as well 
as the unknown in its dramatization of the relations between 
man and that aspect — or those aspects — of nature which 
speaks the final word on all his efforts at defining and satis¬ 
fying his needs. 

THE FUNCTION OF WORSHIP IN RELIGIOUS 
LIVING 

Some philosophy of value — though in primitive religions 
it is usually so poorly defined that it scarcely amounts to 
more than a consciousness of value — is the wellspring of all 
religious endeavor. The preceding chapter sketches the way 
in which the functional philosophy of value sets itself to in¬ 
terpret the values encountered in daily living. To recapitu¬ 
late in a sentence, its aim is (1) to discover the nature or 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 169 

structure of value; (2) to discover, as fully as possible, the 
causal network which accounts for any given value; and 
(3) to denote as many as possible of the value’s meanings in 
terms of the concrete problems it must face. If this is any¬ 
thing more than another “ ivory tower ” for philosophy, if 
it descends into the confusion of life and becomes a factor in 
influencing choices, loyalties and policies, then it becomes a 
religious enterprise. 

When religion appropriates this or any other philosophy 
of value, it moves through three stages. As we have seen, 
philosophical affirmations are translated into theological doc¬ 
trines. The value structure of the universe is called God and 
is related to the concrete human problems of failure and 
frustration, weakness and power, pride and selfishness, ha¬ 
tred and brotherhood. Next, the doctrines are woven into 
a pattern of worship which strives to sensitize the worshiper 
to the claims of God. Finally, the doctrines become the 
major premise of an ethical syllogism, the conclusion of 
which is a moral “ ought ” which the believer accepts as in¬ 
dicative of the will of God. Our immediate attention will 
be restricted to the second stage. The third one will occupy 
the concluding chapter. 

It is the burden of the preceding chapter that the func¬ 
tional philosophy of value does provide the first essential of 
worship; namely, belief in the existence and relevance of 
an objective reality which man can choose to adore. Atten¬ 
tion is centered upon the nature of value. Values are re¬ 
garded as organic to nature since they are relationships be¬ 
tween natural objects such as man and food, man and man, 
man and civilization. These relationships are as objectively 
real as relationships of distance, weight, height, etc., though 
infinitely more complicated. Another salient characteristic 


170 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 


of values is their dynamic formative quality. They are not 
static entities to be drawn into life as an anchor is drawn 
into a boat. Rather they are the bright fingers which lay 
hold of each today and try to guide it in the direction of a 
more abundant tomorrow. Values are not fragile figurines 
which shatter into a million pieces when handled roughly. 
Sometimes they survive, even seem to thrive on, the crudest 
batterings of circumstance. At least they do not readily re¬ 
linquish their hold on life. Aesthetic appreciation does not 
permit itself to be neglected without violent protest. A 
friendship never wanes without poignant regrets. When 
love dies it is almost invariably replaced by cynicism and 
bitterness. The very fact that war propaganda, to be effec¬ 
tive, must show that things have come to such a pass that 
war and hatred are the only way to demonstrate our loyalty 
to the ideals of peace and brotherhood is eloquent testimo¬ 
nial to the tenacious nature of these ideals. 

From still another angle values are seen to be fraught with 
cosmic meaning. The process of progressive integration dis¬ 
cernible in subhuman levels manifests itself most clearly on 
the human level in the growth of values. The values truth, 
beauty, goodness and love are indefinable only when sepa¬ 
rated from the life processes which give them birth. They 
denote certain relationships between man and his environ¬ 
ment which, if cultivated and furthered, lead toward the 
abundant life; which, in turn, may be defined as the maxi¬ 
mum experience of God open to human beings. To the 
degree that these values control life it has the strength of 
genuine purpose, because they are struggling for a fuller 
realization of themselves in and through the totality of that 
life. 

Man, then, is encompassed by a sea of values some of 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 171 

which either actually are or may be operative in his experi¬ 
ence— such as health, friendship, various loyalties, etc.— 
others of which may remain forever potential. His environ¬ 
ment is far from neutral. He is dependent upon this en¬ 
vironing value structure not alone for the creation and pres¬ 
ervation of the goods of life that he has, but in addition for 
me greater goods that may grow in the future. 

Religion embraces these philosophical affirmations as evi¬ 
dence supporting belief in the glory and sufficiency of God. 
This and various other theological doctrines spring from 
them and are woven into the texture of a worship objective 
enough to deliver man from the “ egocentric predicament ” 
yet vitally relative to the goods and needs of life. 

But this message of religion cannot penetrate ears deaf¬ 
ened by the amazing yet widespread conceit that man is 
either entirely or almost self-sufficient, that given a little 
time and some additional wisdom which will accrue with 
experience he can get along quite nicely by himself, thank 
you! Religion has been too constant a companion of man 
since his emergence on this planet to be deceived by this 
splendid example of wishful thinking. Consequently the 
initial aim of the technique of worship is to deflate the hu¬ 
man ego and thereby induce a profound consciousness of 
need which is fundamental to religious discovery and 
growth. The procedure is simple in nature and universal 
in scope, though of course variations in detail will conform 
to differences in cultural and religious traditions. It is 
equally appropriate in crowded cathedrals and “ where two 
or three are met together ” in His name. It confronts the 
worshiper, through the medium of dramatic ritual, with the 
sins, extremities and paradoxes of life. 

Effective services of worship begin with penitential ut- 


172 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

terances like “ O Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” Aided 
by measured chants, hymns and prayers the congregation 
not only is reminded of the various sins of man (pride, 
selfishness, negligence, hatred), but in addition is given am¬ 
ple opportunity to document, own and confess them. Other 
humbling considerations introduced by worship are the un¬ 
avoidable extremities which all flesh is heir to: sickness, ac¬ 
cident, failure, loss of loved ones, insecurities of one kind or 
another, death. Perhaps the most stupendous undertaking 
of the ritual of worship in this connection is the presenta¬ 
tion of the paradoxes which put human life in its cosmic 
setting: time and eternity — the temporal span, the handful 
of days of human life in contrast to the eternality of God; 
frnitude and infinity — man, feeble and circumscribed, set 
over against the God of the universe; 12 evil and good — 
the petty irritations, the sullen prejudices, the fiery passions 
which either arrest or distort growth, seen against the back¬ 
ground of those attitudes and activities through which the 
constant goodness of God asserts itself. 

The Christian religion, as we have seen, centers atten¬ 
tion upon the value structure of the world, calling it God, 
and insists that the abundant life flows from one type of in¬ 
teraction with this rather than from another. To the strenu¬ 
ous doubter who successfully resists all its efforts to convert 
him to this point of view it can only and must finally say: 
Try and see. If you can be healthy without conforming, 
consciously or not, to the laws of well-being which are im¬ 
plicit in our personalities; if you can enjoy deep friendships 
without conforming, consciously or not, to the laws govern- 

12 “ The eternal miracle of each day is that the God of the universe can use 
even me.” Statement by Miss Kathrine Duffield, Y.W.C.A. secretary, at the Silver 
Bay Y.W.C.A. conference, June, 1934. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 173 

ing personal associations which, though we know them in 
part, are implicit in our structure; if you can create the Great 
Society, that social structure which seeks to discover, nurture 
and bring to rich fulfillment the creative energies of man, 
without paying strict and humble attention to the laws of 
personal and social growth which are implicit in human be¬ 
ings — in short, if you can succeed in living a full and abun¬ 
dant life governed by the hypothesis that 

I am the master of my fate 

I am the captain of my soul — 

then religion has nothing more to say. Religion cannot be 
seriously challenged by verbal atheism, by the man who 
says there is no God, but an ax is laid at its roots by ethical 
atheism, by the man who acts as though there were no God, 
who regards all the values of life as his own handiwork. 
Believing as it does that the values that make for abundant liv¬ 
ing grow in proportion to the degree to which man discovers 
and conforms to the will of God, the Christian religion sets 
out deliberately to strip life of those conceits which would 
keep it self-contained. Its constant endeavor has been to 
channel the currents of God through the swamps of human 
self-sufficiency. 

Christian worship begins, then, by stressing the fact of sin, 
man’s need for salvation. Its teachings that this world is a 
“ vale of tears,” “ a house of sin,” that “ I am a stranger here 
within a foreign land; my home is far beyond a golden 
strand,” are dramatic ways, appropriate to a definite cultural 
pattern, of impressing upon man the inadequacy of his own 
efforts. That these and related pictorial ventures were pow¬ 
erful influences in the day when they were integral aspects 
of the cultural pattern cannot be doubted. Today they are 


174 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

“ strayed ghosts of an earlier age ” and are therefore, when 
viewed literally, legitimate objects of curiosity. 

But we cannot thus easily relegate to a prominent place in 
the museum of culture the fundamental truth embedded in 
the Christian doctrine of sin; which may be phrased this 
way: Whenever, wherever man strikes out on his own as 
though he has only himself — whether personally, tribally, 
racially or nationally — to consider in his ethical choices and 
actions, he is doomed to destruction because the very nature 
of the universe is opposing him. Underlying, and giving 
point to, the mythical statement of the doctrine of original 
sin is the straightforward fact that man is born into the world 
as an animal organism driven by the desires of self-preserva¬ 
tion. 13 The social organization from the beginning devotes 
its energies toward gratifying these desires and, in his earlier 
years, requires of him in return a bare minimum of responsi¬ 
bility. But soon the “ age of accountability ” is reached and 
society demands recognition of the sense of social solidarity 
which it has been presenting to him in the form of legend, 
ritual and belief. Useful though it has been and will con¬ 
tinue to be to some degree, if the individual’s original equip¬ 
ment endeavors to dominate his maturity as it did his in¬ 
fancy, if he continues to regard all persons and things as 
means to his own ends, then he is in for the bitter lessons 
that have been taught men from time immemorial and that 
we are learning all over again today. Such a person, from 
the point of view of religion, is in desperate need of salvation 
because he manifestly thinks more highly of himself than 
he ought to think. Therefore the Christian religion does 

18 Cf. Gerald Heard, The Source of Civilization (New York: Harper & Bros., 
I937)> for a brilliant critique of the doctrine that “ survival of the fittest ” has been 
the way to self-preservation. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 175 

not hold the mere fact of life in too high regard. But it has 
never said, as some of its critics infer, that life is necessarily 
bad. Rather it has steadily insisted that life with God is 
good and that life without God is unavoidably bad. 

Schleiermacher located the essence of religion in the “ sense 
of dependence Hoff ding in the “conservation of values.” 
When these insights are coupled and kept together they pro¬ 
vide a significant appraisal of the aim of the Christian re¬ 
ligion, which is to cultivate in man a sense of his dependence 
upon God for the conservation and extension of values. For 
when Christian worship has drained off the poisonous pre¬ 
sumptions of man its task is only half done. The other half 
is to look to God not alone as the author and preserver of 
all goods, past, present and future, but also as One who re¬ 
deems from sin. Worship confronts man with the fact of 
redemption as well as with the fact of sin. It does not heal 
and redeem, nor does it claim to, but it does strive to unite 
men with God who is the author of redemption, the source 
of healing. 14 When worship has sheared from man his pre¬ 
sumptions regarding his own sufficiency and has called upon 
him to turn to God as the One from whom all blessings flow, 
then its work is ended. Whether the worshiper actually will 
call upon God for redemption, whether the healing processes 
of God will produce the results man desires — important 
as these matters are they lie beyond the reach of worship un¬ 
less it cares to deal in magical rather than mystical formulas. 

Worship, concerned as it is with affirming the twin facts 
of the need of man and the sufficiency of God, employs the 
language of symbolism. Symbolism, in general, is the at- 

14 Cf. Micklem’s paper, “ Christian Worship as Reflected in Ancient Liturgies,” 
in his Christian Worship, p. 86, where Christian worship is defined from the be¬ 
ginning as the “ conscious personal relationship between man and God.” 


ij 6 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

tempt to bring a vast area of meaning within the focus of a 
sensory image. Social psychology is making increasingly 
clear the scope and importance of symbolism in social inter¬ 
course. Symbols varying from the gesture of an individual 
to the flag and slogan of a nation comprise the texture of 
society. Dr. Harold D. Lasswell insists that the first step 
in unifying the world is the discovery of “ efficacious sym¬ 
bols.” 15 Every political encounter is replete with examples of 
how symbols may be used and abused in the heat of con¬ 
troversy. Feelings of love and hate, trust and distrust, joy 
and sorrow, victory and defeat have appropriate — i.e., so¬ 
cially understood — actions through which they express them¬ 
selves. 

Believing as it does that Jesus is the link between man and 
God, historic Christian worship has drawn its central sym¬ 
bols more from his person than from his life and teachings. 
The cross, whether fashioned in wood, iron and gold, or 
traced over the heart by the finger of the faithful, signifies 
the redemption of man through the love of God incarnate 
in Jesus Christ. The Bible is a testimonial to the self-revela¬ 
tion of God in human history, culminating in Jesus Christ, 
God incarnate in human flesh. The mass, for the devout, 
symbolizes the continual presence of God in Christ in the 
church as well as celebrates his actual presence on the altar. 

Such symbols do not debate the pros and cons of the mean¬ 
ings they carry; they simply present them to the worshiper. 
If he is inclined to controversy by them the experience of 
worship vanishes for him. Questions regarding both the 
meanings focused in the symbols as well as the adequacy of 
the symbols themselves have a legitimate place in religion, 

15 World Politics and Personal Insecurity (New York: McGraw-Hill Book 
Co., 1935 ), PP- 237 ff- 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 177 

but that place is not in the act of worship. Whether because 
he has never questioned them or because he has established 
their validity to his own satisfaction, he who would worship 
must accept the symbols utilized as adequate foci of the re¬ 
lationship between man and God. Although criticism is 
stilled during the act of worship, it is one of the indispensable 
prerequisites of continuing vitality. Vital worship demands 
ample opportunity both prior and subsequent to the act of 
worship for discussion and clarification of the theological 
doctrines which validate the symbols used therein. 

The tides of change which have swept through the West¬ 
ern world, altering the entire social pattern and with it re¬ 
ligious and philosophical formulations, have left their mark 
on the central symbols of Christian worship. Historians of 
worship are agreed that such symbols (1) are not created by 
fiat but rather are emergents (whether products of natural 
forces or insertions of supernatural reality is hotly disputed) 
in an historical process, and (2) are patently molded by the 
same forces which influence the rise, modification and occa¬ 
sional disintegration of theological doctrines. The two earli¬ 
est sacraments of the Christian fellowship, baptism and the 
eucharist, clearly support this view. They did not, like Mi¬ 
nerva daughter of Zeus, come into existence in the full stature 
which they were to achieve four centuries later. Baptism 
in some form as a rite of purification was insisted upon by 
Jewish and Gentile religions alike as the initial step in receiv¬ 
ing new members. “ From the earliest days, baptism has 
been the door into the church.” 16 First according to tradi¬ 
tion, later according to Scripture, Jesus was baptized by John; 
also he gave his disciples power to baptize those who believe. 
The early apostles, entering Christianity by way of either 

16 Micklem, “ The Sacraments,” in his Christian Worship, p. 246. 


178 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

Jewish piety or the Greco-Roman mysteries, practically can¬ 
onized the traditions about Jesus by baptizing their converts. 
In this rite, Christianity was not radically different from 
many other faiths of the Mediterranean peoples of the first 
two centuries of our era. During the ensuing centuries, 
however, the meaning of baptism underwent a marked de¬ 
velopment paralleling significant changes in the theology 
of the faith. The doctrine of original sin, especially as enun¬ 
ciated by Augustine, made baptism rationally as well as tra¬ 
ditionally mandatory for the Christian. The gradual devel¬ 
opment and acceptance of the entire sacramental system of 
salvation of the church allocated a precise place and meaning 
to the inherited rite. 17 

The eucharist presents an even clearer picture of the 
growth of a religious symbol. Beginning in the first cen¬ 
tury as a meal at the close of day shared by all believers, it 
gathered into itself not only the memorial and sacrificial 
emphases of the Jewish Passover, but in addition the propri- 
atory and god-appropriation strains of the Hellenic mystery 
religions. These three factors — a common meal, Jewish 
and Greek ideologies — converged upon (may even have 
created) the tradition of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples 
and made of it the supreme rite of Christian worship. 18 
Miss Underhill gives this terse description of the evolution 
of the sacrament: “ What we find there [in the New Testa¬ 
ment] is a simple religious rite, on the one hand clearly so¬ 
cial, institutional and historical in character — never the act 
of the ardent believer, but always that of the group — yet on 
the other hand recognized as the sacred means of personal 

17 Article “ Baptism,” by Hans Leitzmann and John M. Creed, in Encyclopedia 
Britannica (14th ed.), Vol. III. 

18 C. H. Dodd, “ The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament,” 
in Christian Worship, N. Micklem, ed., pp. 68 ff. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 179 

communion between the individual believer and his unseen 
Lord. Whatever enrichments later practice and reflection 
may have brought, obedience, remembrance, communion 
and enhancement of life stand out as features of this primi¬ 
tive corporate experience. As the church gradually came to 
realize all its implications, so the eucharistic celebration grew 
in richness and significance; gathering up the largest possi¬ 
ble number of spiritual insights and references — both uni¬ 
versal and personal — and harmonizing them about its un¬ 
changing heart. Into this mold the worshiping instinct of 
generations has poured itself; and bit by bit there have thus 
been added to the Christian ritual pattern all those funda¬ 
mental responses to God which are latent in the religious 
soul. At last, in the fully developed liturgy, the whole drama 
of creation and redemption—God’s loving movement toward 
man, and man’s response in Christ — is recapitulated; and 
all the implications which lay hidden in its small origins, 
the grain of wheat which was flung into the field of the 
world, are brought to maturity.” 19 

Viewed as a whole a liturgy is itself a master symbol which 
surrounds the worshiper with the profound meanings of the 
faith and suggests concretely their relevance to human life. 
The great liturgies of the Christian churches have gone 
through a definite evolution, the various stages of which are 
suggested by the writings of students of the subject. 20 

Professor Bartlet writes that “ the first or primitive stage 
of Christian worship, as of Christian thought, was one of free 
experiment, during which certain modes of expressing the 
new filial spirit of common devotion inspiring all hearts, 

19 Op. cit., p. 122. 

20 Ibid.; Micklcm (ed.)> Christian Worship; Vogt, op. cit.; L. Duchesne, 
Origins oj Christian Worship (London: Society for the Promotion of Christian 
Knowledge, 1912). 


180 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

which had been tested by experience, took shape and attained 
general acceptance, under the leadership of the most Spirit- 
gifted.” 21 The letters of Paul and Clement, the Didache and 
various other patristic writings are eloquent confirmation of 
this significant conclusion. Since the first Christian groups 
were predominantly Jewish and were animated by the convic¬ 
tion that Jesus was the Messiah promised of old, their faith 
naturally expressed itself in the familiar liturgy of the syna¬ 
gogue worship. So true is this that Dr. Duchesne opines that 
the eucharist is “ the only durable and permanent element 
which Christianity has added to the liturgy of the syna¬ 
gogues.” 22 The simple historical fact that the new faith was 
soon not only cut adrift from the synagogues but was actively 
opposed by them and was thereafter under the necessity of 
interpreting its affirmations to Gentiles should be sufficient 
reason for the period of “ free experimentation.” 

By the end of the fourth century three factors had emerged 
which conspired together to determine the content and the 
general structure of the liturgy for the next fifteen cen¬ 
turies (excepting always the various protestant movements 
which aimed radically to reform both content and structure 
of the liturgy), (i) The organization of the church was 
practically complete. The duties and prerogatives of the 
clergy were clearly defined; the authority of the bishop of 
Rome was no longer seriously challenged by other bishops. 
(2) The New Testament canon was closed and Jerome’s 
biblical labors were putting the Christian Scriptures into ap¬ 
proximately their final form. (3) The crucial doctrine of 
the trinity had been formulated and accepted to the extent 

21 Micklem, “ Christian Worship as Reflected in Ancient Liturgies,” in his 
Christian Worship, p. 85. 

22 Duchesne, op. cit., p. 49. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 181 

that it was fundamental to all other theological endeavors, 
enabling the church for the first time clearly to divide ortho¬ 
doxy from heresy. 

Christian liturgy not so much reflected as actually capital¬ 
ized these developments. For now its message and con¬ 
gregation of believers were well defined. Its problem 
henceforth was to relate the unchanging message to chang¬ 
ing congregations by means of a pattern of symbols accept¬ 
able to both. Its efforts to solve this never-to-be-completely- 
solved problem have led it through the ages to enlist the aid 
of every art known to man. 

But changes have occurred in both the form and the con¬ 
tent of the liturgy. Although Eastern and Western Catholi¬ 
cism share the same fundamental faith in the redemption of 
man through the intercession of God in Christ, their litur¬ 
gies stress different aspects of it. Miss Underhill’s summary 
of these differences rewards attention: “ The Eastern euchar- 
ist is a supernatural mystery, of which the most sacred actions 
are screened from view. Its devotional emphasis falls upon 
the coming into time of the Eternal Logos, the unworthiness 
yet adoring thankfulness of the creature, the awfulness of 
that which is done. The people are shut off from the sanctu¬ 
ary. . . . All this is in strong contrast with the genius of the 
true Roman rite, as we find it in the earliest sacramentaries. 

. . . Here the whole conception is more concrete, more dy¬ 
namic, even though no less mysterious than in the East. The 
stress falls not upon the adoring contemplation of the heav¬ 
enly sacrifice, but upon the due performance here and now 
of the sacred act, the eucharistic sacrifice in which all take 
part.” 23 

The same author points out that while there has been 

23 Op.cit., pp. 253-54. 


182 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

some slight adaptation of message to congregation in Eastern 
Catholicism, there has been an actual evolution within the 
liturgy of the Western church, an evolution controlled by 
two factors: “First, the Catholic conception of the church 
as a living organism, indwelt and guided by the Spirit, and 
therefore able to grow and change like all other living 
things; to expand and adjust her worship, and meet the 
needs of her children, giving fresh expression to the un¬ 
changing realities committed to her charge. Second, the 
concrete and practical character of the Latin mind, which 
prefers the active to the static and the declared to the mysteri¬ 
ous, and is intensely conscious of the temporal order and its 
limitations and demands.” 24 

The protest movements of the Reformation, proceeding 
as they did by way of sharp break with many vital doctrines 
of the Catholic Church, strove to construct liturgies that 
would mediate the reformulated message to congregations 
of believers set apart from the world by new canons of ortho¬ 
doxy. In the four hundred years that have elapsed (the same 
period required for the Catholic liturgy to reach a determi¬ 
nate form) Protestant liturgies have traveled all sorts of 
roads, varying from Anglican worship with its slight modifi¬ 
cation of the traditional Catholic worship to the Quaker 
meetings which utilize a radically different type of symbol¬ 
ism . 25 The search for effective liturgical patterns continues 
and should continue as long as either the message is modified 
by science and philosophy or the social controls of the group 
change. 

This basic principle of the efficacious symbol (whether an 
individual rite or a pattern of symbols) may be discerned in 
the history of religious symbolism: it must confront the con- 

24 Ibid., p. 256. 25 Ibid., pp. 307 ff. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 183 

Crete needs of man with affirmations not alone hallowed by 
tradition but descriptive of certain common experiences as 
well. And Whitehead with his usual incisiveness leaves the 
matter this way: “Those societies [read churches] which 
cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of 
revision must ultimately decay either from anarchy or from 
the slow atrophy of a life stifled by useless shadows .” 26 

The preceding survey, brief though it is, makes it abun¬ 
dantly plain that the Christian churches have not hesitated 
to alter traditional symbolism in order to communicate old 
meanings to persons who live in different cultural climates. 
Some recent historical studies in the meanings of Jesus 
Christ to successive generations of Christians indicate the 
adequacy of this conclusion . 27 For, as has been repeatedly 
said, the symbol Jesus Christ is the central fact in Christian 
symbolism just as he is the central fact in the theology which 
undergirds that symbolism. Whether we use the language 
of art in worship, if it is Christian worship, or the language 
of philosophy in theology, if it is Christian theology, Jesus 
Christ is the ultimate focus of meaning. This unalterable 
and indisputable fact exists wherever the Christian religion, 
regardless of creed, is found. This, I take it, is one interpre¬ 
tation of the truth of Hebrews' confident affirmation of 
“ Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forevermore.” 
But the studies cited are conclusive on the point that interpre¬ 
tations of what he means have kept pace with variations in 
the socio-political patterns of the culture of his followers, be¬ 
ginning as early as the diflerences of opinion between Peter 

26 Symbolism, Its Meaning and Effect (New York: The Macmillan Co., 
1927), p. 88; all of chap. 3 is relevant. Cf. also C. C. Morrison, The Social Gospel 
and the Christian Cultas (New York: Harper & Bros., 1933), passim. 

27 Mathews, The Atonement and the Social Process; Case, Jesus Through the 
Centuries. 


184 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

and Paul at Antioch. The history of Christian doctrine, 
worship and ethics is one of continuous exfoliation, in terms 
of successive cultures, of the meanings of Jesus Christ. 

TENTATIVENESS AND CERTAINTY IN WORSHIP 

Two fundamental emphases in the preceding discussion 
should serve both to illustrate the existence and to demon¬ 
strate the importance of the polar relationship between ten¬ 
tativeness and certainty. The first of these is the content of 
worship which is the dramatization of the vertical, the super¬ 
human, nature of the values of life. Worship begins with 
concrete experiences of value, yet does not content itself with 
a narcissistic contemplation of them as things in themselves. 
Rather it sees in them a revelation of the nature of value it¬ 
self. It sees in discrete goods the good, in separated occasions 
of beauty the beautiful, in common acts of fidelity the truth. 
Worship sees in the values of life God, the Supreme Value, 
as their creator and sustainer. But worship does not demand 
complete knowledge of God in order to celebrate him as the 
source of the values of life. What it does demand is that 
men shall become sensitive to the presence or absence of val¬ 
ues from their experience and what this means to their lives. 
For values, as we have seen, are dynamic factors in the devel¬ 
opment of life. They cannot be confined to any given mo¬ 
ment but stream into the future as conditioning agents in the 
choices, loyalties and devotions of men. Worship aims to 
provide a perspective on values which will enable the wor¬ 
shiper to behold in his daily appreciations, satisfactions and 
enjoyments experiences which continue as important guides 
as he enters into the future. Therefore worship endeavors 
to teach men that the greatest significance of their formula¬ 
tions of truth, beauty, goodness and love, of their idea of 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 185 

God (all necessarily being based upon past experiences and 
systematized by more or less careful rational procedure) is 
as predications of what lies ahead. But alterations in these 
formulations not only are inevitable but should be wel¬ 
comed. For God will be supreme value throughout the 
future as he has been throughout the past. Perhaps the most 
profound insight of Christian eschatology (belief in the mi¬ 
raculous and cataclysmic intervention of God in history in 
order to establish his kingdom) is that the God of the past 
is the God of the future as well. The great liturgies of the 
church endeavor both to confront their devotees with the 
mysterious nature of the universe and to inspire confidence 
in it because, threading it like a firm road through a treach¬ 
erous swamp, is the purpose of God. Man’s struggles to find 
and follow it have been heartbreaking but not fruitless. 

It is clear then that worship as a dramatization of the 
vertical nature of human values begins with two rock-bottom 
certainties: (1) the experience of values in the lives of the wor¬ 
shipers; (2) the continuity of these experiences into the future 
for their fulfillment. But tentativeness supplements each of 
these certainties. For the value experiences demand articu¬ 
lation and systematization in order to facilitate judgment 
when one is confronted by new experiences; nor can the ac¬ 
curacy of these formulations, when used as predications of 
the future, be determined prior to the consequences of their 
application. It lies with the future whether, or to what ex¬ 
tent, they will work. The message of the Christian religion 
has grown to its present proportions through some such proc¬ 
ess. It presents each generation with a triple gift: (1) defi¬ 
nite assurance drawn from the past; (2) an assimilative 
power, a broad range of adaptability, which enables it to ad¬ 
just to present complexities and novelties; (3) confidence in 


186 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

the future. Although it faces the future with diffidence born 
of the realization that no one knows or can know what is 
going to happen, it nevertheless affirms that God will take 
care of his own even though that may mean, in the grim 
idiom of Calvin, that “ some will be damned to the glory of 
God.” 

The second emphasis which clarifies the relationship of 
tentativeness and certainty is closely related to the first. It 
is the mobile or plastic nature of the symbols of worship. 
Miss Underhill points out how the implications of the early 
eucharist were gradually realized as the experience of the 
Christian group became more comprehensive. The same 
truth obtains relative to the central symbol of Christian wor¬ 
ship — Jesus Christ. It is a palpable untruth to say, as is often 
done, that he means what men make him mean. No amount 
of twisting, whether oratorical or legal, can make him a con¬ 
vincing Klansman, or Nordic, or American, though these 
and similar efforts have been made. The generations of 
Christians subsequent to his day have followed him not alone 
because of what he saw and taught but even more truly 
because of the direction in which he looked and moved. The 
writer of the Gospel of John puts this pregnant saying in the 
mouth of Jesus: “ Greater things than these shall ye do.” 

The truth of the matter seems to be this: when men move 
in the direction in which Jesus looked, they understandably 
credit him with their discoveries. 28 In Paul’s phrase, they 
“live in Christ.” Jesus has become through the centuries 
the symbol of all good things to all Christian folk. He is 
variously referred to as the great teacher, preacher, physician, 
engineer of human life, etc. But the unalterable aspect of 

28 Cf. H. H. Henson, Christian Morality (London: Oxford University Press, 
1936), chap. 12. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Worship 187 

this particular Christian symbol is the direction of living 
which it indicates. It indicates those attitudes and activities 
which promote and constitute the abundant life. Therefore, 
if someone should attempt to make him out a demagogue 
rather than the great teacher, a dealer in magic rather than 
the great preacher of righteousness, a destroyer of life rather 
than the great physician, he would not only be flying in the 
face of our fragmentary Gospel records, but he would be 
overwhelmed by the discoveries made by untold multitudes 
of Christians — common folk as well as mystics, theologians, 
artists — who through the centuries have faced their future 
“ in Jesus’ name.” 

The point I am trying to make is that religious symbols, 
along with every other kind, are sensitive to new or changing 
experiences. Effective symbols grow, and they are effective 
foci of undiscovered meanings only so long as they do grow. 
Once more, then, we see the organic relationship between 
tentativeness and certainty in this process whereby a symbol 
bearing an accepted meaning acquires new, yet consistent, 
meanings as it gathers into itself the new experiences of lives 
inspired by it. Certainty flows (1) from the historical fact 
which comprises the symbol Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord’s 
Supper, etc. — that there was such a person or original event; 

(2) from the growing body of meanings attributed to it by 
subsequent worshipers — it has meant this to our fathers; 

(3) from the definite nature (what I have been calling direc¬ 
tion) of the symbol by virtue of which it accepts some mean¬ 
ings and rejects others — to adore him, or participate in it, 
one must do certain things. Tentativeness enters all along 
the line because all three of these sources of certainty not 
only are born of empirical data but for continued signifi¬ 
cance constantly rely upon them. And, as we have seen, 


188 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

empirical judgments for their very life depend upon tenta¬ 
tiveness. It alone can keep the past experience sensitive to 
the meanings of present and future. 

Worship without the expectancy of greater light about to 
break forth from God, without the agonized groping for a 
clearer vision of the deepest meanings of life, is indistinguish¬ 
able from magic. Where worship is the living edge of re¬ 
ligious faith it continues to perform its historic function of 
leading men in an act of adoration of the goodness of God 
upon whose mercies they are dependent. 


X 


SYNTHESIS OF TENTATIVENESS 
AND CERTAINTY IN ETHICAL CONDUCT 

L IFE IS fundamentally, even brutally, pragmatic. It may 
be characterized as an unending flow of related ten- 
^ sional situations which make a common demand upon 
all participants — they must act and react. Ideas and ideals, 
concepts and plans, philosophies and religions are thrown 
into a hopper that is alive with action, and their worth is 
measured not by their brilliance in detachment but by the 
extent to which their influence is discernible in consequences 
of action. When a student once characterized Sir Thomas 
More’s Utopia as “ a good idea but it won’t work,” he elicited 
this reply from Dr. James Hayden Tufts: “Young man, I 
trust you will soon learn life’s fundamental lesson: if it is a 
good idea it will work and if it won’t work it isn’t a good 
idea.” Granting that the meaning of “ work ” is exceedingly 
difficult to fasten down, we must recognize that the ethical 
insights of the Jewish-Christian religion have always had 
some such aim; their relevance to life has been one of their 
strongest appeals. It is not distorting the facts to affirm that 
with all the otherworldliness involved in the creation and 
coddling of rationalistic and mystical absolutes, this particu¬ 
lar religious tradition is prepared to deal with the pragmatic 
quality of life. 

In order to clarify the terms which will be used, let us re¬ 
call that morality concerns itself with the standards which 

189 


190 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

regulate the life of a people. It accepts, institutionalizes, de¬ 
fends and perpetuates these standards. Ethics has two func¬ 
tions, both of which root in, yet transcend, morality. De¬ 
scriptive or comparative ethics deals with the comparison 
and clarification of the various standards operative in differ¬ 
ent moralities. Normative ethics builds upon this work and 
seeks to determine what the ideal standards are, what the 
goals and ideals of action ought to be. It is in the latter 
sense that we shall be using the phrase “ ethical conduct ” 
in this chapter — as action which aims to translate the “ is ” 
of life into the “ ought-to-be more accurately, perhaps, to 
discover that way of relating the “ is ” to the “ ought-to-be ” 
by virtue of which the latter increasingly informs the former. 

It is within the area of ethical action, so conceived, that 
the polarity between tentativeness and certainty in religion 
is subjected to severest strain. If we could meet the require¬ 
ments of life simply by reflecting on what ought to be done, 
our present problem would never arise. But we are called 
upon to live in line with such reflections. We are held re¬ 
sponsible for the ideals which motivate our actions. When 
we try to live in line with them we find that almost without 
exception our ideals and plans are roughly handled by life- 
situations ; certainly they are never more than crude approxi¬ 
mations of the value structure encountered in life. The least 
we can say is that the realities of life have successfully resisted 
every attempt of science, religion and philosophy to discern 
an all-pervasive unity among them. Philosophy’s “ration¬ 
ality of the universe,” science’s “ uniformity of nature,” and 
religion’s “ omnipotence of God ” are classic examples of 
good horses that were ridden too far. There are, or seem 
to be, exceptions to these generalizations in sufficiently large 
numbers to modify them rather than to prove them the rule. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 191 

But however roughly life may deal with our ideals, ideas 
and plans, we shall continue to use them, suffer with them, 
improve them, and use them again; and all this because 
they constitute our only insurance against aimlessness. They 
are essential ingredients of purposive activity. Yet they are 
not ultimates in the sense that we must accept them without 
inquiry and cling to them regardless of consequences in order 
to be guided by them. If they were, then tentativeness would 
indeed be the enemy of religion. Our problem is this: Can 
the ideal defined as an instrument of discovery command 
sufficient loyalty to evoke ethical action ? How far is it possi¬ 
ble, or is it possible, for a person to accept as the controlling 
factor in his choices and planning a formulation which he 
knows will be redefined in the light of experience ? 

Religion in its creative moments (those to which subse¬ 
quent generations cling as times when God was close to 
man) has not been deceived into an idolatry of ideals. It 
has regarded them as improvable equipment. “Ye have 
heard it said by them of old time, but I say unto you. . . .” 
Ideals are valuable in so far and only in so far as they are 
expressions of God’s will. The ethical strand in the Jewish- 
Christian religion, distinguished for the moment from the 
mystical and rational emphasis, has always placed its final 
confidence not in ideals as such, but in the consequences of 
activity guided and sustained by religious ideals. While the 
rationalists strove for logical coherence in religious formula¬ 
tions and the mystics sought the “ peace that passeth all un¬ 
derstanding,” the ethical seers have confronted both with 
the insistence that the final validation of logically coherent 
religious formulations and the experience of mystic ecstasy 
inheres in ethical action. “ Not everyone that saith ... but 
hethatdoeth. . . 


192 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

Prophetic religion, as outlined by J. M. P. Smith in The 
Prophet and His Problems , x is one such creative moment in 
our religious tradition; for in the eighth and seventh cen¬ 
turies before Christ sensitive religious spirits were struggling 
toward newer and more adequate conceptions of religion in 
a way strangely akin to that of our own day. When the 
radical Christian leaders of today 1 2 revitalize and redefine 
Christian ideals by interpreting them in terms of social prob¬ 
lems they are following in the path marked out by the seers 
of early Israel who strove to make their religious inheritance 
live again by stating it in ethical “ ought’s.” “ Their [proph¬ 
ets’] service was ... in finding a new application for old 
truths and preeminently in the exaltation of ethics to its 
rightful place in the scheme of things . 3 ... It is the glory 
of the prophet at his best that he allowed nothing to share 
the place that belonged of right to ethics alone. He en¬ 
throned ethics in the very heart of Yahweh and thus made 
Yahweh the God of the universe. . . . This was not a philo¬ 
sophical or a speculative but an ethical monotheism.” 4 Thus 
we find these men of God who were “ called of God, inspired 
of God, and sustained of God ” 5 actually speaking for God, 
counseling their hearers to “ let judgment run down as waters 
and righteousness as a mighty stream 6 “ sow to yourselves 
in righteousness 7 “ to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk 
humbly with thy God 8 “ wash you, make you clean; put 
away the evil of your doing from before mine eyes; cease to 
do evil, learn to do well.” 9 

1 New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923, pp. 209 fT. 

2 Reinhold Niebuhr, John Bennett, Gregory Vlastos, Bishop F. J. McConnell, 

Arthur E. Holt, Shailer Mathews, C. C. Morrison. 6 Amos 5:24. 

3 J. M. P. Smith, op. cit., p. 220. ? Hos. 10:12. 

4 Ibid., p. 222. 8 Mic. 6:8. 

5 Ibid., p. 211. 0 Isa. 1:16-17. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 193 

The prophets had no quarrel with the rubric of temple 
worship, feast and fast days, Sabbaths and sacrifices, except 
as concern for these edged ethical action out of the focus of 
attention. They most assuredly did not scrap the ideals em¬ 
bedded in traditional religion, though they did redefine and 
expand them. Purity before God was one such ideal. Too 
frequently it had meant bringing the correct sacrificial offer¬ 
ing, etc. Micah, too, believed in purity before God, but he 
drove it to the heart of the universe with the staggering — 
and unanswerable — question, “ Shall I count them pure 
with the wicked balances and with the bag of deceitful 
weights ? ” 10 

The holiness of God is the accepted fundamental of pro¬ 
phetic religion wherever it appeared in ancient Israel, a con¬ 
ception shared with the great figures of the priestly tradition 
— Moses, Ezekiel, Ezra. The uniqueness of the prophets 
lies in their perception and enunciation of the fact that divine 
holiness inserts itself into human affairs as ethical com¬ 
mandments to seek and promote righteousness. “ Who shall 
ascend into the hill of the Lord ? or who shall stand in his 
holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; 
who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn de¬ 
ceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and 
righteousness from the God of his salvation.” 11 

Students of the Gospels agree that Jesus felt the full force 
of the prophetic tradition and, accepting its ethical emphasis, 
he gave it its supreme expression. Reinhold Niebuhr asserts, 
“ The ethic of Jesus is the perfect fruit of prophetic reli¬ 
gion.” 12 Dr. B. W. Robinson says that the “ best attested 

10 Mic. 6:11. 

11 Ps. 24:3-5. 

12 An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (New York: Harper & Bros., 1935), 


194 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

saying ” of Jesus (in that it occurs six times in the Gospels) 
is this: “ Anyone who aims to preserve his own self will lose 
his soul, but anyone who loses himself in the cause of the 
gospel will find himself.” 13 Significantly, in one case this 
counsel concludes Jesus’ instructions to the twelve as he sends 
them out as missionaries. Albert Schweitzer feels that in 
this tenth chapter of Matthew we have the actual words of 
Jesus. 14 Be that as it may, one characteristic of Jesus was his 
constant calling of men into a life of purposive activity, de¬ 
signed to demonstrate their fitness for the Kingdom of God. 
There is an urgency, almost a ruthlessness, in his imperious 
insistence that men should leave homes, families, work, 
should cut across fundamental strictures of the reigning mo¬ 
rality in order to do the will of God. 

Scholars have argued, without conclusiveness, that this is 
an “interim ethic” — one especially devised to guide life 
during the last days of the world. Whether, or to what ex¬ 
tent, this is true is an important question, and it is emerging 
as a contemporary problem in the current edition of the 
eschatological ethic espoused by Paul Tillich 15 and Reinhold 
Niebuhr 16 and fondled by John Bennett. 17 Our present pur¬ 
pose does not require us to take sides, since the contestants 
are in agreement on the essential nature of that ethic though 
they differ on the intended scope of its applicability. For 
Jesus, obedience to the will of God is of supreme importance, 
and this obedience is fundamentally and unalterably ethical. 

13 The Sayings of Jesus (New York: Harper & Bros., 1930), p. 145. Cf. 
Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24 and 17:33; Matt. 10:39 and 16:25; John 12:25. 

14 The Quest of the Historical Jesus (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1925), 
P- 357 - 

16 The Religious Situation of the Present (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 
1932), p. 143; The Interpretation of History, pp. 266 ff. 

16 Numerous writings, especially An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, chap. 2. 

17 Social Salvation (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935), chap. 5. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 195 

As Professor E. R. Scott puts it, “ He came with a message 
from God, and his ethic has no meaning apart from his re¬ 
ligion.” 18 Leslie Stephen argues that Jesus’ great discovery, 
the one provoking the moral revolution of Christianity, is 
that “ morality is internal,” 19 that he was urging men to 
“ ‘ be this ’ instead of 4 do this.’ ” Granting at once that Jesus 
played havoc with existing catalogues of virtuous and evil 
acts by calling attention to motive, that his emphasis upon 
the vicious nature of lust and hate was understandably star¬ 
tling to men who preened themselves upon not having com¬ 
mitted adultery and murder, the fact remains that Jesus no¬ 
where separates motive from consequences, character from 
conduct. He was striving to re-establish the inner pole of 
ethical action when he taught his disciples that the great 
evils of life come from within: “ That which cometh out of 
the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the 
heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, 
murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lascivious¬ 
ness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil 
things come from within, and defile the man.” 20 We do 
violence to Jesus’ ethic unless we have a clear perception of 
the fact that he was teaching men that you cannot gather 
“ grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles that “ a good 
tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree 
bring forth good fruit.” 21 But equal violence is done when 
we separate this emphasis from the famous judgment scene 
when men are divided into sheep and goats according to 
their deeds. 22 Jesus proclaims the prophetic ideal of purity 

18 Ethical Teachings of Jesus (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1924), p. xii. 

19 The Science of Ethics (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1882), p. 155. 

20 Mark 7:20-23. 

21 Matt. 7:18. 

22 Matt. 25:31-46. 


196 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

before God (“ blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 
see God ”) and insists that ethical action is an inevitable con¬ 
sequence of it, is, indeed, the token by which it is recognized. 
He shares the prophetic faith that the holiness of God lays 
man under severe ethical requirements. “ Therefore, if thou 
bring thy gift before the altar, and there rememberest that 
thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift be¬ 
fore the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy 
brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” 23 
How much Paul knew of the life and teachings of Jesus 
we do not know. His associations with Luke and Mark as 
well as his frequent contacts with the disciples establish the 
strong probability that he knew considerably more than 
comes to expression in any of his writings that survive. Why 
he does not make more use of his knowledge is a matter of 
conjecture. He could not have thought lightly of it. Deiss- 
mann summarizes the problem this way: “The earthly life 
of Jesus, then, was appreciated by Paul, at least in the letters 
that have come down to us, more for its character as a whole 
than for its details. . . . That Paul is influenced generally 
by the tradition of the words of Jesus, even when he does 
not expressly quote them, is shown by the moral exhortations 
of his letters and by other silent adaptations of sayings of 
Jesus. . . . In his oral preaching mission the apostle no doubt 
made a still more ample use of the words of Jesus than was 
necessary in letters directed to Christians. ... At the com¬ 
manding center, however, of Paul’s contemplation of Christ 
stands the Living One who is also the Crucified, or the Cruci¬ 
fied who is also alive.” 24 This, then, is the pattern through 

28 Matt. 5:23-24. 

24 Paul (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1926), pp. 195 ff. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 197 

which the prophetic emphasis upon ethical action comes to 
expression in Paul. 25 

The apostle in his many-sided writings expresses the firm 
belief that salvation comes to those who accept Jesus as the 
revelation of God, who live in Christ and in whom Christ 
lives. Such salvation yields a “new creature in Christ,'” 
which is as truly an ethical as a mystical transformation. For 
Paul constantly insists that there are definite “ fruits of the 
spirit ” that give indubitable evidence of the indwelling of 
Christ in the heart of the believer. Such fruits are pro¬ 
foundly ethical: “ love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance . . . and they that 
are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and 
lusts.” 26 To be born again, with new desires, appetites and 
passions, to want to love Christ and serve him only — this 
is the fruit of salvation for Paul. 

AUTHORITARIAN RELIGIOUS ETHICS 

Historically, Christian ethics has been authoritarian in 
structure rather than empirical, though empiricism has never 
been wholly absent. The difference in emphasis between the 
two is marked and may be stated this way: Authoritarian re¬ 
ligious ethics provides, or claims to provide, revelation of in¬ 
fallible choice, whereas empirical religious ethics guarantees 
nothing beyond intelligent choosing. The three most im¬ 
portant sources of infallible authority holding sway in Chris¬ 
tendom are church, Bible, and conscience or the inner light. 
Wherever these have been accepted authoritarianism in ethics 
was and is inevitable. Whether it is a Catholic and his church 
or a Protestant and his Bible or a Quaker and his inner guid- 

26 Inge, op. cit., p. 39. 26 Gal. 5:22-24. 


198 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

ance, they share a single conviction, namely, that they possess 
certain knowledge of what to do, how to act and what to 
choose. 

The Catholic Church has indicated in characters so bold 
that “ he who runs may read ” that the way to salvation in¬ 
volves correct theological beliefs and ecclesiastical conformity. 
This type of authoritarianism utilizes a straight-away deduc¬ 
tive approach to ethical action. For the major premise of its 
ethical syllogism is always compounded of its doctrines of 
man, God, sin and salvation. These are above question, since 
they are revealed truth. The minor premise asserts that the 
concrete problem faced by the perplexed person is an instance 
of the subject of the major premise. The conclusion inevi¬ 
tably follows, deriving from the predicate of the major prem¬ 
ise. This is a fair illustration of the procedure: 

All invasion of divine prerogatives is sin. 

Birth control by means of artificial contraceptives is an 
invasion of divine prerogatives. 

Therefore, this type of birth control is sin. 

Waiving the mare’s nest of difficulties inherent in the initial 
statement, the crux of the problem manifestly is in the minor 
premise; for it is possible to argue with considerable cogency 
that there are many situations in which birth control by any 
and every means constitutes, so far as human wisdom can 
see, a support of God’s will, assuming that he is interested in 
creating and supporting the abundant life. 27 The reason for 
using this particular illustration is not to provoke argument 
on birth control, but rather to indicate that authoritarian 
religious ethics always operates in an area of uncertainty 

27 Inge, op. cit., pp. 283-84, gives some shocking illustrations in support of 
this point. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 199 

when it strives to relate its infallible principles to empirical 
problems. 28 

It would seem that, bolstered by the imposing ecclesiastical 
organization, surrounded by the all-inclusive intricacies of 
theology, and brooded over by the watchful eye of one who 
had immediate and efficacious access to the will of God and 
the church alike, ethical action should have been an open and 
closed affair for the Catholic. Such, however, has not been 
the case. The category of purgatory may be regarded as an 
eternal and fitting commemoration of the hiatus between 
the revealed wisdom, the bestowed power of the authorita¬ 
tive church, and the particular problems of the individual. 
Much as Plato’s philosopher stumbles when he returns from 
gazing on absolute good to the half-lights of existence in 
which his fellows dwell, the church has blundered along 
from case to case, culture to culture, age to age. As John 
Dewey points out, “ one of the most instructive things in all 
human history is the system of concessions, tolerances, mitiga¬ 
tions and reprieves which the Catholic Church with its official 
supernatural morality has devised for the multitude.” 29 Dr. 
Dewey feels that this is a concession to the inability of the 
multitude to adhere to a lofty ethic. Without doubt there is 
some truth in this position, but a more obvious reason is that 
the ethical principles which were crystal-clear and self-evident 
while undisturbed in the enfoldment of theological and ec¬ 
clesiastical authority, were neither clear nor self-evident when 
applied to concrete cases. In support of this interpretation, 
we should remember that the “ system of concessions, etc.” 
to which Dr. Dewey refers is administered by the priest to 
the laymen through the medium of the confessional; which, 

28 Cf. Chap. IV. 

29 Human Nature and Conduct (Modern Library Series), p. 5. 


200 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

viewed abstractly, is the moment when the authoritarian 
ethics of the church meets empirical problems. 

Consider, for further light on the relationship between 
authoritarian religious ethics and concrete cases, the most 
courageous and incisive attempts of the Roman Catholic 
Church to deal with social and economic problems: the en¬ 
cyclicals Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII, issued in 1891, 
and Quadragesimo Anno of Pope Pius XI, issued in 1931. 30 
Both, especially the former, are profoundly rich in ethical 
principles drawn from the theology of the church and her 
long heritage of experience. 

Rerum Novarum, after a telling description of the “ misery 
and wretchedness which press so heavily at this moment on 
the large majority of the poor,” 31 and a treatment — all too 
inadequate — of the socialists’ view of property, 32 proceeds to 
discuss “ man’s natural right to private property,” 33 and 
“ man’s natural right and his social and domestic duties.” 34 
Having defined these natural rights, the document is pre¬ 
pared to define, in general, “ the Christian interdependence 
of capital and labor.” Two sections on this subject, though 
lengthy, deserve quotation: 

“ First of all, there is nothing more powerful than religion 
(of which the church is the interpreter and guardian) in 
drawing rich and poor together, by reminding each class of 
its duties to the other, and especially of the duties of justice. 

“ Thus religion teaches the laboring man and the workman 
to carry out honestly and well all equitable agreements freely 

80 Both encyclicals are given, with comments, in that excellent volume by 
Father Husslein, The Christian Social Manifesto (New York: Bruce Publishing Co., 
1931). The encyclicals are divided into sections and numbered accordingly; we 
shall refer to the encyclical by initials and to the section by number. 

31 R. N., 2. 33 R. N., 5-6. 

33 R. N.j 3 - 4 . 34 & N., 9-12. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 201 

made, never to injure capital, nor to outrage the person of 
an employer; never to employ violence in representing his 
own cause, nor to engage in riot and disorder; and to have 
nothing to do with men of evil principles, who work upon 
the people with artful promises, and raise foolish hopes which 
usually end in disaster and in repentance when too late. 

“Religion teaches the rich man and the employer that 
their work people are not their slaves; that they must respect 
in every man his dignity as a man and as a Christian; that 
labor is nothing to be ashamed of, if we listen to right reason 
and to Christian philosophy, but is an honorable employment, 
enabling a man to sustain his life in an upright and creditable 
way; and that it is shameful and inhuman to treat men like 
chattels to make money by, or to look upon them merely as 
so much muscle or physical power. Thus, again, religion 
teaches that, as among the workmen’s concerns are religion 
herself, and things spiritual and mental, the employer is 
bound to see that he has time for the duties of piety; that he 
be not exposed to corrupting influences and dangerous occa¬ 
sions; and that he be not led away to neglect his home and 
family or to squander his wages. Then, again, the employer 
must never tax his work people beyond their strength, nor 
employ them in work unsuited to their sex or age. 

“ His great and principal obligation is to give to every one 
that which is just. Doubtless before we can decide whether 
wages are adequate, many things have to be considered, but 
rich men and masters should remember this — that to ex¬ 
ercise pressure for the sake of gain, upon the indigent and 
destitute, and to make one’s profit out of the need of another, 
is condemned by all laws, human and divine. To defraud 
anyone of wages that are his due is a crime which cries to 
the avenging anger of heaven. ‘ Behold, the hire of the la- 


202 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

borers . . . which by fraud has been kept back by you, 
crieth; and the cry of them hath entered the ears of the Lord 
of Sabaoth.’ Finally, the rich must religiously refrain from 
cutting down the workman’s earnings, either by force, fraud, 
or by usurious dealings; and with the more reason because 
the poor man is weak and unprotected, and because his slen¬ 
der means should be sacred in proportion to their scantiness. 
Were these precepts carefully obeyed and followed, would 
not strife die out and cease ? ” 35 

I doubt whether authoritarianism in ethics can ever come 
to closer grips with concrete realities than Pope Leo XIII 
does in these passages. Yet the careful reader will find their 
crucial concepts, those designed to unite the regulative prin¬ 
ciples deduced from theology with concrete evils, incapable of 
systematic and precise definition. Consider the following: 
equitable agreements, violence, disorder, evil principles, 
slaves, Christians, right reason, corrupting influences, dan¬ 
gerous occasions, to give to everyone that which is just, usuri¬ 
ous. A later section in the same encyclical defines a fair wage 
as “ remuneration . . . enough to support the wage earner 
in reasonable and frugal comfort.” 36 That such regulative 
principles meet concrete realities in an area of uncertainty is 
recognized by implication, at least, first in the admission 
that “doubtless before we can decide whether wages are 
adequate, many things have to be considered,” and second 
in the recommendation that workingmen’s associations be 
multiplied, 37 one of whose functions would be to decide dis¬ 
putes 38 over matters pertaining to fair wage, “ hours of labor 
in different trades, the sanitary precautions to be observed 
in factories and workshops.” 39 

36 R. N., 16-17. 

36 R. N., 34. 

37 R. N., 36. Cf. Husslein, op. cit., chaps. 29 and 33. 


38 R. N., 43. 

39 R. N. t 34. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 203 

Both encyclicals agree in leaving technical matters to tech¬ 
nicians and experts, though neither term is clarified. Pre¬ 
sumably ethical action will result when owners and working¬ 
men, both immersed in relevant concrete facts, attack mutual 
problems with the aid of experts and under the guidance of 
the regulative principles so clearly enunciated by the popes. 
We shall have cause to see that no criticism can fall upon this 
general procedure, except possibly the most inclusive criticism 
of all, namely, that fundamentally it is then not an authori¬ 
tarian religious ethic but is implicitly empirical and experi¬ 
mental. 

Though Protestant groups have transferred the base of 
authority from the church to Scripture and conscience, the 
logical form of ethical reasoning has been unchanged. Re¬ 
liance upon scriptural authority covers the wide range from 
biblical literalism to the liberal valuation of the Bible as an 
invaluable deposit of religious experience. 

Biblical literalism (more commonly called fundamental¬ 
ism) believes the Bible to be the infallible word of God. It 
regards the Scriptures as a sort of pipe-line carrying “ all we 
know on earth and all we need to know,” and holds that the 
whole function of religious leadership is to find, by means of 
minute textual scrutiny, new places for tapping the line and 
making its contents available for concrete problems. The all- 
time low in the absurdity to which this procedure is liable 
was reached, not when Paul was quoted against bobbed hair, 
Leviticus against knickers for women, etc., but when a state 
representative in the Illinois legislature argued against pro¬ 
hibition by leading a parade through the august chamber of 
the house, waving the Book before his listeners and quoting 
Paul’s admonition to Timothy to “ take a little wine for the 
stomach’s sake.” The horns of the beasts in Daniel have 


204 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

practically disappeared under the constant polishings of those 
who insist upon reading therein preconceived meanings. 
The long succession of men, from Nero to Hitler, Mussolini 
and Stalin, who have confidently been proved to be the Anti¬ 
christ of Revelation is sufficient commentary upon the logical 
procedure. For our immediate purpose it is sufficient to note 
the extraordinary fluidity of the biblically grounded lists of 
virtues and vices. Such lists vary, not with our increasing 
knowledge of the socio-religious backgrounds of the Bible, 
but with changes in our environment. 

It does not require more than a casual survey of the Chris¬ 
tian world today to reach the conclusion that this way of 
using the Bible not only has brought discredit upon the Bible 
but is on its way out. Few if any denominational colleges 
accredited by recognized accrediting agencies present the 
Bible in this fashion. Ranting evangelism continues to es¬ 
pouse it; occasional startled laymen like the late William 
Jennings Bryan leave fruitful work in other fields and fly to 
its rescue to awaken only pity for their efforts rather than 
secure conviction for the cause; its magician-like manipu¬ 
lation of biblical materials convinces only those who are 
prepared to believe. Perhaps the most conclusive consider¬ 
ation is that scholars after the order of the late John Gresham 
Machen are few and far between in its ranks, and without 
such men to orient its case to the perplexities of men neither 
this nor any other point of view can hope effectively to condi¬ 
tion social behavior. Of course, biblical literalism has no 
more than a passing interest in ethical action; it has, in fact, 
roundly scored the merely moral man as an enemy of God. 

It is pertinent to indicate one significant historical fact 
about the social gospel movement of the past half-century 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 205 

that has been noted so often that any elaboration of it is un¬ 
necessary. Biblical literalism not only did not produce the 
movement, but as a matter of fact had little to do with it. In 
this movement we see one significant difference between 
biblical literalism and biblical liberalism. For the social gos¬ 
pel movement flowed from the springs of liberalism, and, 
with all its delusions about progress, surrender to the emerg¬ 
ing secularism, etc., it remains the one concerted effort of 
Protestantism to rise above denominationalism in the attempt 
to elicit ethical action in terms of social problems. Its social 
idealism continues to find pungent expression in the pro¬ 
nouncements of its institutional heir, the Federal Council of 
the Churches of Christ in America. 

Since ethical action rooting in biblical liberalism is more 
empirical than authoritarian, fuller consideraton of it will be 
postponed to the next section. 

A conscience-guided ethic is the remaining form of authori¬ 
tarianism which religion has espoused. Conscience, though 
difficult of definition, is identified by its dependence for direc¬ 
tion upon revelation^ which are profoundly personal mystical 
contacts with God or some substructure of eternal law. Pro¬ 
fessor T. V. Smith gives conscience, so conceived, the trench¬ 
ant appellation “ a divine outpost.” 40 His significant book 
may be regarded as demonstrating the fact that conscience 
is not an ultimate in ethical theory, since its dicta are no 
sounder than the authoritative base upon which they rest. 
Theorists in ethics from Socrates to Professor T. V. Smith 
have advanced many different bases for the deliverances of 
conscience. There is no call for our entering the lists of this 
debate; we take leave of it, accepting its unanimous affirma- 

40 Beyond Conscience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934 ), P- 32. 


206 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

tion that conscience is a mediator between man and some¬ 
thing else. 41 

An example of this mediation is found in the foundation 
of Kantian morality, “ the moral law within,” which under¬ 
lies and validates the dicta of conscience. Yet the Christian 
religion refuses to accept the moral law as an ultimate and 
insists that it must be validated as the will of God (in Thom- 
istic language, as an expression in nature of an eternal law) 
or go without validation. While most Christian thinkers 
have not been as pessimistic about man’s moral nature as 
Augustine and Calvin, they have, without exception, been 
wary of intuition-guided activity such as is implied in the 
doctrine of conscience. Mysticism, or what Troeltsch calls 
“spiritual religion,” as distinct from organized religion in 
the church and the social radicalism of the sect, alone has ex¬ 
tended it a friendly hand. Troeltsch defines mysticism as 
“simply the insistence upon a direct inward and present 
religious experience.” 42 Its aim is to produce a personal 
communion between man and God describable only as un¬ 
speakable ecstasy. It makes constant capital of the fact that 
Christianity began as a religion of personal salvation medi¬ 
ated through Christ in whom one might be in unbroken 
communion with God. 43 

This profound and powerful emphasis upon religion as 
personal communion was stifled, at least severely minimized, 
during the great ages of rationalism and ecclesiasticism in 
religion; yet it was constantly siring “brotherhood move- 

41 Dr. Smith’s own conclusion, however, is no conclusion at all, since for him 
conscience is a heroic gesture, the self speaking as an aesthetic unity. This simply 
raises the problem of the nature of a self capable of reacting in this way; so we 
find ourselves once more confronted with the validation of conscience. 

42 Social Teachings of the Christian Churches (New York: The Macmillan 
Co., 1931), II, 730. 

48 Deissmann calls this Christusmystik.. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 207 

ments ” of one sort and another. It is a striking fact that 
ever y great monastic or conventual order began in the per¬ 
son of some one or ones who strove to transcend the rational, 
social character of church and sect religion and achieve intui¬ 
tive, personal intimacy with God. Evelyn Underhill’s work, 
The Mystics of the Church, contains ample evidence support¬ 
ing this view . 44 She finds that the mystics seldom break with 
accepted theological doctrines and ecclesiastical practices; 
rather they aim to bring the life and warmth of religion into 
them by means of discovering the way or ways of personal 
communion with God. 

Not all reform movements born of the desire to deepen the 
spirituality of the church succeeded in staying within it. 
The tragic story of the Albigenses and Waldenses is in vivid 
contrast to that of the clerical and lay groups who were ac¬ 
cepted by the church. Protestantism has found it as difficult 
as Catholicism to pour the new wine of a spiritually grounded 
reform into the old wineskins of acceptable theology and 
polity. Methodism and Quakerism illustrate the matter. 
The former from the beginning has aimed at the creation of 
a strong church, with clear theological doctrine and accepted 
liturgical practice, though it has usually permitted a margin 
for difference of opinion. Quakerism, however, has consist¬ 
ently tried to avoid developing either theological or ecclesias¬ 
tical traditions. It has clung to its principle of guidance 
through the inner light, and therefore furnishes the most 
authentic case of an endeavor to construct a conscience- 
guided ethic. Keeping fully in mind the Friends’ distaste for 
theology and church polity, one must nevertheless observe 
that it is not accurate to say that the various ethical policies 
of the group root in the deliverance of conscience alone. 

44 New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1926. 


208 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

Their stand against war, for example, grows from their doc¬ 
trine— and doctrine it is in fact if not in name — of the 
brotherhood of man; which doctrine, in turn, is bolstered by 
the New Testament teaching on nonviolence and love . 45 
Thus we see the inevitable tendency of conscience to validate 
its deliverances by resting them, at least partially, upon some 
social, i.e. shareable, base. William Penn puts the point posi¬ 
tively when he challenges the Quakers’ critics thus: “You 
profess Holy Scriptures: but what do you witness and ex¬ 
perience? What interest have you in them? Can you set 
to your seal that they are true by the work of the same spirit 
in you that gave them forth in the holy ancients? ” 46 We 
have in this succinct statement the “ something else ” which 
conscience mediates to man, namely, the spirit of God re¬ 
vealed in Scripture, yet discernible there only by one in whose 
life it is a present experience. Hence if the inner light be re¬ 
garded as light rather than darkness, it is because the one in 
whom it glows gives full credence to the belief in the con¬ 
tinuing presence of God. 

All known cases of mystical or spiritual religion have given 
rise to some form of rationalization (explanation and inter¬ 
pretation) and have invested themselves in institutions of 
more or less rigid natures. Indeed we write of this form of 
religion only in terms of such developments. Troeltsch’s 
analysis of the origins of spiritual religion prepares us for 
his cryptic summary of its ability to deal with concrete ethical 
issues: 

“ Spiritual religion or mysticism is not a product of particu¬ 
lar social conditions. It proceeds from other causes: the ex- 

45 “They [the Quakers] . . . took the Sermon on the Mount as their ethical 
ideal.” — Troeltsch, op. cit., p. 781. 

40 A Summons or Call to Christendom, quoted in article “ Friends, Society of,” 
Encyclopedia Britannica (14th ed.), IX, 851. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 209 

perience of the incapacity of the churches to realize their 
ideal, weariness of the strife and conflict of religious parties, 
the pure inner dialectic of religious feeling returning to its 
ultimate source, the critical destruction of dogmas and cults, 
and weariness of the disappointments and confusions of the 
external life in general. Its inner circles do not penetrate into 
the masses, and its purely contemplative ideas do not grip 
the common life, but work purely personally, or hover in a 
literary manner over the whole. In modern times certainly, 
its extension depends upon the existence of classes which live 
apart from the crude struggle for existence, and can seek 
spiritual refinement for their own sake, so far as it is not 
hidden in small evangelical sects, which also, however, have 
always a special sectarian trait. Beyond that it is connected 
with the modern scientific cultivation of the autonomous 
reason, in so far as this takes a religious turn. To this 
extent it reflects today the universal individualism of modern 
times, which indeed it still further strengthens. It accom¬ 
panies social conditions, but does not arise out of them, nor 
does it influence them directly. Indirectly, however, the fact 
that it weakens the power and exclusiveness of the churches 
means that it has a very important social influence.” 47 And 
the conclusion of the matter is this: “The usual answer 
[given when conduct is questioned], ‘ The Spirit recognizes 
the Spirit,’ was found to be useless in practice. Hence this 
standpoint easily led to the giving up of all and every kind of 
organized fellowship, or to a withdrawal into private groups 
of a purely personal character composed of kindred souls.” 48 

As long as spiritual religion remains an inward experience 
it is unrelated to ethical idealism; it is simply and solely the 
ecstatic experience of reabsorption into deity. But the exi- 

« Troeltsch, op. cit., pp. 816-17. 48 U>id., p. 999 - 


210 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

gencies of life summon the mystic back to the social milieu. 
It is then that he must make an important decision: he may 
admit that the experience is ethically irrelevant; he may beat 
a retreat from as many as possible of the problems pressing 
for solution; he may grope toward an application of the ex¬ 
perience and call upon church, theology, Scripture or some 
other social aid for help. Historically all three alternatives 
have been adopted at some time or other; the second has been 
far and away the most usual development, furnishing the 
motif for all ascetic movements which have sought to segre¬ 
gate themselves from the world; the third amounts to admis¬ 
sion that inner guidance, alone, is unable to cope with ethical 
realities. 

The judgment, therefore, is based upon experience when 
we say that conscience or the inner light taken by itself is a 
wholly unreliable basis for ethical action. In and of itself 
it tends either to insulate the individual from the urgency of 
moral problems or to fling him into social action under the 
guidance of a standard which is essentially incommunicable 
and beyond social validation, and therefore incapable of com¬ 
ing to grips with empirical realities, which, as we have seen, 
are hemmed in by unavoidable uncertainties and relativities. 
Ethical action, motivated by uncritical reliance upon con¬ 
science, is bound to assume some form of anarchism, resulting 
in the denial of normal social intercourse through the crea¬ 
tion of an esoteric social group based upon fellowship in the 
Spirit. The very fact that mystics have gravitated into so¬ 
cieties and orders is perhaps the final answer to the claim that 
their intuitive insights are all-sufficient. The slow but sure 
evolution of the governing doctrines of mystical societies, 
such as the Quakers and the contemporary Oxford move¬ 
ment, must be regarded as evidence for the fact that con- 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 21 i 

science, or any other form of “ guidance ” of the person by 
God, must, if it is to influence behavior, let alone perpetuate 
itself, depend upon social implementation in the form of 
doctrines and an organization which endeavor to interpret 
its meaning to believers as well as to communicate it to un¬ 
believers. Conscience, as a conviction of the validity and 
authenticity of an insight, is undoubtedly an important factor 
in convincing ethical action, but it is not self-sufficient. It 
must be bolstered by regulative principles drawn from some 
other source, whether theology, tradition, Scripture, or past 
experience as it is gathered together in traditional morality. 
Conscience is not an ultimate in ethical action, though it is an 
indispensable ingredient in it. 

Professor Emil Brunner’s recent monumental work, The 
Divine Imperative , 49 cannot, strictly speaking, be included 
under any one of the preceding types of authoritarianism, 
though it is definitely authoritarian in cast. For Professor 
Brunner, the church as the “ community of believers ” rather 
than a hierarchical-sacramentarian mouthpiece of deity is 
an essential to the Christian faith which underlies Christian 
ethics; also he relies on the Scriptures but rejects as vicious 
the legalistic ethic based upon verbal inspiration; finally he 
comes closest to accepting the Friends’ doctrine of inner light 
in his conception of revelation, which, to his mind, is the 
moment when the guidance of God is mediated to needy, 
sinful, hesitant man. Yet he carefully purges this last type 
of authority from any taint of individualism, insisting that 
the commandments of God have a universal validity which 
is discernible to the “ community of believers.” Dr. Brunner 
adds one other source of authority to these three. This is 
“ God’s action,” which the believer encounters as he struggles 

49 New York: The Macmillan Co., 1937. 


212 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

with his problems. This, to my mind, is almost sufficient 
ground for moving Brunner’s “ Protestant ethic ” over into 
the category of an empirical religious ethic, since the ultimate 
validation of the insights born of church, Scriptures and reve¬ 
lation is to be found in ethical action. I have not so disposed 
of it because of the author’s conviction that “ ethics is only a 
section of dogmatics ” 50 and that Christian dogmatics is 
fundamentally authoritative since it derives from the Word 
of God mediated through the Scriptures and revelation. His 
own words on this matter deserve quotation: “ As for faith 
in general, so also for the good, it is true that God’s Word 
is twofold: the Scripture and the Spirit, the unity between 
the Word that has taken place and the Word that is taking 
place now. The love of God revealed in Christ, in the Scrip¬ 
tures, is the same love of God which is shed abroad in our 
hearts by the same life-giving Spirit.” 51 

Precisely what help, then, is Christian ethics to the Chris¬ 
tian who is confronting a moral problem ? In the first place 
it confronts him with the fact that “ God only demands one 
thing: that we should live in his love,” 62 which love is medi¬ 
ated to the believer by the fellowship in the faith, through 
Scripture, and through revelation personally received yet 
shareable with other Christians. Then, getting down to the 
spade work of ethical action, Brunner affirms that ethics “ can 
prepare the decision of the individual as carefully as a con¬ 
scientious legal adviser prepares the decision of the judge by 
the most careful consideration of all possibilities .” 68 Then 
the individual must choose. But the wisdom of his choice 
rests with “ the free action of God,” 54 whose will and way 

50 Ibid.,p. 152 (footnote). 68 Ibid., p. 139. 

51 Ibid., p. 92. 54 Ibid., p. 88. 

52 Ibid., p. 165. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 213 

can never be reduced to an ethical lawbook which contains 
all the answers. 

In consequence we are prepared for Professor Brunner’s 
flat assertion that there is no such thing as a “ Christian ” eco¬ 
nomic or social program. In all the five hundred and sixty- 
seven pages of the book, Christian ethics never gets closer to 
a concrete personal, social or moral problem than to em¬ 
phasize that to the degree that we are Christians (essentially 
an authoritarian achievement) we shall know the correct 
thing to do. I cannot leave Brunner’s thesis without observ¬ 
ing that it is wholly unconvincing because of its uneven 
handling of the authority of revelation in the moment of 
choice and the free action of God manifest in the consequences 
based upon that choice. If the revelation mediated to the 
Christian in moral perplexity is authoritative, why should it 
ever be modified, much less repudiated by the free action of 
God ? The whole emphasis of Brunner’s book falls on the 
antecedents of ethical action rather than on the consequences, 
and since the deliverances of God are essentially authoritarian, 
Christian ethics, for Brunner, may correctly be styled a spirit- 
guided ethics. 

The most that authority, be it church, Bible or conscience, 
can do is lend assistance to the direction of ethical action; it 
cannot coerce the details of empirical problems into its pre¬ 
scriptive patterns. Regulative principles, embodying values, 
are essential to the solution of concrete cases, but, as was 
pointed out in an earlier chapter, the unfinished, dynamic 
nature of empirical reality keeps judgments of relevance 
within the area of probability. This is so far from being an 
empty logical form that recognition of it is the dividing line 
between authoritarian ethics on the one side and empirical 
ethics on the other. 


214 Tra Quest for Religious Certainty 

Since authoritarian religious ethics has been unable to ful¬ 
fill its high promise of being an infallibly sure guide in ethical 
action, we shall now assess the difficulties faced by an ethics 
proceeding along empirical lines yet deriving its regulative 
principles from religion. Whereas the former essayed guar¬ 
anteeing an infallible choice, the most the latter hopes for is 
intelligent choosing. No one would spend time with the 
latter were the former available, but such is not the case. 
Bishop Francis J. McConnell writes, “ Almost all Christian¬ 
ity’s difficulties come of trying to make word flesh. The word 
may be permanent but flesh changes .” 55 Authoritarianism 
has been unable to bring the incarnation to pass by decree 
(a mode of creativity perhaps wisely reserved for God alone), 
but its efforts are far from futile, since its various bases con¬ 
tinually reappear as reservoirs of the seminal ideas of every 
known form of empirical religious ethics. 

EMPIRICAL RELIGIOUS ETHICS 

The empirical approach to moral problems is based upon a 
clear perception of the area of uncertainty in which the au¬ 
thoritative principle is coupled to concrete cases. It asserts 
that ethical action stands a good chance of being thoroughly 
vicious unless the hazardous nature of this uncertainty is fully 
recognized and reduced to a minimum by careful handling 
of the crucial factors involved. It is therefore profoundly 
suspicious of the minor premise of the ethical syllogism 
whereby authoritarian ethics seeks to prescribe an infallible 
choice for particular problems; for the minor premise claims 
to subordinate the specific problem under a general category 
dealt with in the major premise. An empirical religious 
ethic endeavors to mediate between regulative principles or 

55 Christendom, Autumn, 1935, p. 185. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 215 

ideals and specific problems which can be solved only by 
application of some regulative principle, by following the 
leading of some ideal regarded as relevant. Although it dis¬ 
claims the prescriptive intentions of authoritarian ethics, it 
does not repudiate the ethical principles espoused by the latter. 
Rather, we may lay it down as a general rule that all forms of 
empirical religious ethics make constant use of some one 
or more of the traditional sources of authority . 56 It accepts 
their ideals as relevant principles of action, but insists that 
one cannot tell prior to their eventuation as consequences 
whether, or to what extent, they are really relevant to the 
problem at hand. This is the exact operation in which tenta¬ 
tiveness and certainty must be kept in supplementary work¬ 
ing relations if constructive ethical action is to result. This 
position, of course, is worlds removed from ethical nihilism, 
in which one ideal is as good as another, since it regards the 
moral ideals of good and right as phantasies born of despair 
rather than as approximations of the nature of the value 
structure of the universe. An empirical religious ethic is 
differentiated from such thought by its belief in the existence 
of a value structure and by the constant use it makes of the 
most acute observations and reflections upon past experience 
that are available and accepts them as safe guides in present 
perplexities. 

The form of ethics we are now considering has a full- 
bodied respect for the complex, dynamic character of every 
moral problem — a complexity which defies complete classi¬ 
fication and analysis, a dynamic quality which realizes itself 
in continuing activity. It accepts as elemental fact Dewey’s 
twin assertions that “ all action is an invasion of the future, 
of the unknown. Conflict and uncertainty are ultimate 

56 Inge, op. tit., chaps, i and 2. 


2i6 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

traits,” 57 and that “ the moral issue concerns the future. . . . 
It is prospective; ... the moral problem is that of modify¬ 
ing the factors which now influence future results.” 58 Ac¬ 
cepting this analysis of the metaphysics of the (any) moral 
problem, an empirical religious ethics believes intelligent 
choosing among alternate possibilities to be the summum 
bonum of ethical action. It uses ideals and principles born 
of traditional authorities as suggestive rather than mandatory. 

Should the query be raised, In what sense can such an ethic 
be called religious? a twofold answer may be made, (i) It 
is religious if and to the extent that it derives its ideals and 
regulative principles from some phase of religious tradition. 
(2) It is religious in so far as it recognizes the existence of a 
value structure encountered in the life process, of which ideals 
are approximations and to which they are answerable, 
through consequences of action under their guidance, for 
their validity. An empirical religious ethic, therefore, em¬ 
phasizes (1) the relevance of ideals to moral problems, (2) 
the possibility of discovering, through ethical exploration, 
the fuller nature of the value structure of the universe, (3) 
the necessity of personal commitment to the value structure 
of the universe if ideals are to impregnate action sufficiently 
to control it, yet are to be held subject to modification in the 
light of the discoveries born of ethical action. Each of these 
merits closer attention, since in all we shall discern the polar 
relationship of tentativeness and certainty and see the truth 
of an earlier assertion that ethical action depends upon the 
careful preservation of this relationship. 

/. The Relevance of Ideals to Moral Problems . An em¬ 
pirical religious ethic can answer with an emphatic affirma¬ 
tive the initial query of this chapter: Can the ideal defined 

67 Human Nature and Conduct, p. 12. 68 Ibid., pp. 18-19. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 217 

as an instrument of discovery command sufficient loyalty to 
evoke ethical action ? I am taking it for granted that we need 
not pause for a lengthy argument over the importance of 
ideals. It ought to be self-evident that they are essential to 
ethical action, because they are human perceptions and artic¬ 
ulations of values and their meaning for existence. Without 
judgments of value, of better and worse, good and bad, 
embedded in ideals, there can be no evaluation of action. 
Professor F. C. Sharp writes: “ The source of all judgments 
upon conduct, both judgments of right and judgments of 
good, is certain ideals. . . . An ideal is a force, it tends to 
produce action in conformity with itself. These ideals are 
thus not merely the source of our judgment, but also the 
foundation of the moral life.” 59 Dr. Clifford Barrett concurs: 
“Ideals are the patterns and goals of man’s world. They 
constitute the architectural plans according to which he con¬ 
structs conduct and institutions. Theirs is a dynamic as well 
as a normative function. They present that which is to be 
attained, and man, appreciating the value to be derived from 
the attainments they suggest, feels an urge to accomplish their 
fulfillment.” 60 

The ideal is essential to ethical action, because it endeavors 
to guide man into a fuller relationship with the value struc¬ 
ture of the universe. Therefore it is neither a luxury nor a 
phantasy, though some ideals frequently partake of the char¬ 
acter of both. And it is more than a rigid summary of past 
experience. Professor Dewey argues the matter in this way: 
“Every ideal is preceded by an actuality; but the ideal is 
more than a repetition in inner image of the actual. It pro¬ 
jects in securer and wider and fuller form some good which 

59 Ethics (New York: Century Co., 1928), p. 493. 

60 Ethics (New York: Harper & Bros., 1933), p. 120. 


2i8 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

has been previously experienced in a precarious, accidental, 
fleeting way.” 61 I take this to mean that the ideal drives its 
roots into past experiences of value which have been precious 
but fragmentary. The function of the ideal, then, is to gener¬ 
alize upon such experiences, to depict them in cosmic terms, 
to see in them clues to a fuller, richer value structure than 
anything yet dreamed of. They become an atmosphere in 
which man lives, moves, hopes and works. Professor N. 
Hartmann points out that “ the living values of all moral 
systems find their most effective, most satisfactory embodi¬ 
ment in concrete ideals, whether these be only free creations 
of the phantasy or be borrowed from living examples.” 62 

I doubt whether we can find many examples of values 
being effectively nurtured by ideals that are “ free creations 
of the phantasy.” Newell Dwight Hillis somewhere sug¬ 
gests one when he writes that “one hundred years after 
Homer wrote the Iliad ninety thousand young Achilles’ trod 
the soil of Greece.” Aesop’s fables, the various mythologies, 
fairy stories, may be what Dr. Hartmann has in mind, but I 
suspect that all such rely heavily upon definite socio-cultural 
patterns for their moral maxims and are scarcely “ free crea¬ 
tions.” Popular ideals, always projected upon great persons 
and projects, are effective depictions of the values cherished 
by the people. Thus Washington symbolizes integrity; Lin¬ 
coln, magnanimity; Theodore Roosevelt, activity; Wilson, 
peace. The great projects of any age literally bristle with 
folk ideals; witness the age of the Crusades in which the ro¬ 
mantic ideals of chivalry and the religious ideals of service of, 
obedience to, and humility before the will of God shared 
popular approval. For a period following the World War 
the League of Nations and the World Court were projects 

61 Human Nature and Conduct, p. 23. 62 Ethics, I, 198. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 219 

which embodied the ideal of peace for our day. When con¬ 
fidence in them began to slip, the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact 
outlawing war became the new embodiment for many. Now 
that our confidence in it is running out, we are searching 
for a new bearer of the ideal. Disillusionment is rife because 
we have been unable as yet to discover one, and until we do 
action for peace is going to seem far-fetched and pointless. 
All of which illustrates the single point that ideals are es¬ 
sential to ethical action, and that they never remain simply 
concepts, but tend to invest themselves in persons and proj¬ 
ects through which they control action. 

Hartmann insists that ideals or principles are manifesta¬ 
tions of the dynamic nature of moral values, and his analysis 
of the relationship between moral values and existence is 
clear and convincing. Though, according to his metaphysics, 
moral values have an ideal self-existence — that is, inhere in 
the realm of ideal being — they are never perceived by man 
as wholly neutral entities. When beheld they are always in 
the category of “ ought-to-be,” and this translates itself 
into man’s ethical consciousness as “ ought-to-do.” 63 Moral 
values, then, actually intersect the area of existence in the 
form of ideals or principles which struggle to insert the order 
of the value into existential reality. “ It belongs to their 
[values’] essence as principles of the ethos [of man] that they 
transcend the sphere of essentialities and of ideal self-existence 
and seize hold on the fluctuating world of moral acts. They 
must be principles of the actual ethical sphere also.” 64 

Whether we view them instrumentally with Dewey or 
metaphysically with Hartmann, we arrive at the single con¬ 
clusion that ideals can be trusted as guides in moral perplex¬ 
ity. They are ethical instruments through which values born 

63 Ibid., pp. 233 fl. 64 Ibid., p. 236. 


220 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

of experience endeavor to previse and control action in the 
face of moral problems. This is not to praise them overmuch; 
they too must meet such problems in the area of uncertainty. 
Ideals never furnish us with all we know or need to know for 
infallible choices. To put it pictorially, ideals are to moral 
problems what a compass is to a mariner, giving a sense of 
direction, but telling nothing of the conditions of sailing, 
depth of water, etc., which are equally, but no more, impor¬ 
tant to a successful voyage. 

An empirical Christian ethic will strive to solve moral prob¬ 
lems by means of the ideal of love which it feels most ade¬ 
quately relates man to the value structure of the universe. 
Needless to say this has resulted in all sorts of interpretations 
of love, all of which intend to bring it closer to the realities 
of moral problems. Dean W. R. Inge and Dr. Reinhold 
Niebuhr represent respectively liberal and radical interpreters 
of an empirical Christian ethic. It is therefore germane to 
our purpose to scrutinize their understanding and use of the 
ideal of love. 

Dean Inge speaks of “ love which as a philosophical prin¬ 
ciple means that we are members one of another, so that the 
welfare of all is the good of each.” 65 He both bolsters and 
clarifies this statement by taking the life and teachings of 
Jesus as “ regulative principles.” These lead him to describe 
“ love to God ” as comprising “ the consciousness of deep 
dependence, the sentiment of devout gratitude, and the con¬ 
viction that the love and the presence of God surround us 
like an atmosphere.” 66 Love of man he describes in this way: 
“ Christian love is the recognition of a fact — the brotherhood 
of humanity in Christ, involving a claim — that in all things 
we should seek the highest good of our neighbor, as if his 

65 Op. cit., p. 25. 66 Ibid., p. 43. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 221 

good were our own.” 67 Dean Inge then proceeds to take up 
a series of crucial ethical problems drawn from social and per¬ 
sonal life and endeavors to elucidate the meanings of love in 
terms of each perplexity. Insisting as he does that “ civiliza¬ 
tion ... is actually passing into a new phase,” 68 one with 
which the experience of the past is unable to cope, he seeks 
to get a true picture of each problem by availing himself of 
statistics, reports, opinions, and an amazing number of other 
interpretations, in terms of which he endeavors to state the 
meaning of ethical action guided by the Christian ideal of 
love. And the ideal of love does introduce a sense of direction 
into the problem, a consciousness of “ oughtness yet there 
is always room for debate over his specific recommendations. 
The crucial point in such debate is always over whether love 
means exactly this or something else. Facts and faith are 
not always as congenial as the lion and the lamb are going 
to be — some day. An uneliminable margin of inconclusive¬ 
ness hems in the author’s conclusions in each problem. 

Dr. Niebuhr holds that Jesus’ conception of love is funda¬ 
mental to Christian ethics and is the source of hope and de¬ 
spair alike. “ Jesus’ conception of pure love is related to the 
idea of justice as the holiness of God is related to the goodness 
of men. It transcends the possible and the historical.” 69 But 
it is not wholly unrelated to existence. It is operative in our 
developing theories of justice, for example. “ No absolute 
limit can be placed upon the degree to which human society 
may yet approximate the ideal [of forgiving love]. But it 
is certain that every achievement will remain in the realm 
of approximation. The ideal in its perfect form lies beyond 
the capacities of human nature.” 70 Hence love earns the 


67 Ibid., pp. 43-44- 

68 Ibid. 


69 Op.cit., p. 31. 

70 Ibid., p. hi. 


222 


The Quest for Religious Certainty 

startling title of “ impossible possibility.” 71 Although “ love 
perfectionism ” is not feasible in our world of relative goods 
and values — indeed may be vicious if taken as literally ap¬ 
plicable to our problems — it continues to be the star by 
which the Christian sets the course of his ethical action. He 
will plunge into the relativities of existence and devote his 
energies toward securing a greater degree of justice; he will, 
in short, be guided by an alert ethic of compromise (almost 
a “ prudential ethic,” which Dr. Niebuhr scorns) rather than 
be numbed into apathetic, if not dangerous, inaction by an 
absolutistic ethic which will have love or nothing. Yet even 
the relativistic ethics which Dr. Niebuhr champions as being 
the only one suitable to the realities of existence derives its 
significance from the fact that it is an approximation of what 
he calls ideal love. 72 Its light is borrowed light. 

Needless to say, I have no serious quarrel with Dr. Nie¬ 
buhr’s penetrating thesis; it is far too excellent and convinc¬ 
ing a portrayal of the meaning of tentativeness and certainty 
in ethical action for me to do other than acclaim it. Love, for 
him, is a definite, dynamic value structure operative in degree 
within existence, yet in its absolute nature wholly transcend¬ 
ent to the relativities of life. Christian ethics gets its direction 
from “ pure love,” then settles down to the grim, desperate 
task of moving personal and social life toward perfection by 
means of immediate goals which are admittedly approxi¬ 
mations. 73 

Ideals, then, not only are relevant to moral problems but 
represent an indispensable ingredient of any satisfactory way 

71 Ibid., pp. H7ff. 

72 “ Ideal love,” as Dr. Niebuhr uses it, is synonymous with what I have been 
calling “ value structure.” 

73 The ethical thought of John Oman, Natural and Supernatural, and F. R. 
Barry, Christianity and the Modern World, makes this same point. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 223 

of dealing with them. Ideals are not ultimates — but they 
are approximations of a value structure which is ultimate 
and which finally judges the activity incited by ideals in its 
name. Ideals are not confident masters of every moral per¬ 
plexity, since the complexity of such problems defies ex¬ 
haustive analysis — but by emphasizing as supreme the values 
seen to be involved in the problem they do provide a sense 
of direction which action should take if these values are to 
be preserved and furthered. Since ideals are conditioned 
not alone by our limited past experience, but also by our 
interpretations of that and all other experience thought to be 
relevant; since they gain their specific actional content from 
our analysis of the complexity of the problem at hand; since 
they so easily become sentimental cliches — for these reasons, 
ideals are not to be worshiped nor even treated with awe. 
They are tools with which the religious person works as he 
strives to insert his religious insights into the stuff of existence, 
and are in constant need of attention if they are to serve him 
well. But they are his best tools and are therefore not to be 
treated lightly. Without them, religion is an ethical luxury. 

2. The Possibility of Discovering the Fuller Nature of God 
through Ethical Action. An empirical Christian ethic never 
loses sight of the fact that it is a religious enterprise. Dean 
Inge rightly warns us that “ the ethics of Christianity are re¬ 
ligious ethics; they have their center in God.” 74 That the 
presuppositions of religion seriously complicate ethical the¬ 
ory is avowed by Hartmann, who sees in them several indis¬ 
soluble antinomies which even his brilliant, subtle mind can¬ 
not resolve. 75 Dr. Niebuhr admits the difficulty since secular 
ethics may talk of error, whereas religious ethics speaks of 
sin; secular ethics speaks of progress, religious ethics of holy 

74 Op. cit., p. 4. 75 op. cit., Ill, chap. 21. 


224 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

love. This is unavoidable, since religion introduces the 
“ dimension of depth ” 76 into life and ethical thought. A 
religious ethic, therefore, regards its ideals and concepts as 
valid if, and to the degree that, they express the nature of 
fundamental reality. It is well to remind ourselves that a 
religious ethic has a confidence in the future which secular 
ethics neither can nor desires to claim, in that the truth or 
error of its precepts will be determined by the continuing 
activity of God. It accepts as profoundly true Schiller’s as¬ 
sertion that “ the history of the world is the judgment of the 
world.” 77 It is because the Christian religion believes in a 
“ living ” 78 rather than a “ dead ” or absentee God, and in 
an “ unfinished ” 79 rather than a completed universe, that 
its ethics provides the central thread of ethical theorizing in 
the Western world even to this day. Christian ethics sees a 
victory for religious insight in its defeats and a source of re¬ 
ligious joy in its failures, for “ hath not the Lord spoken ? ” 

Ethical action is the most inclusive religious experience 
open to man. In it, past experience conditions present action 
in order to control in some measure at least future results. 
Insights, reasons, experiences garnered all the way from an¬ 
tiquity to modernity and harvested from the lives of others 
as well as self — all these humbly await the judgment of God 
as they guide human action into the future. Rationalist and 
mystic alike must finally bow before the prophetic summa¬ 
tion of religious living: “ By their fruits shall ye know them.” 
And the only fruits known to man are in the area of action, 
understanding this to mean something other than a scurry- 

76 Niebuhr, op. cit., p. 4. 

77 Quoted by Brunner, Our Faith (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936), 
p. 146. 

78 Moehlman’s phrase. 

79 T. S. Gregory’s phrase. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 225 

ing hither and yon; to mean in fact profound interaction 
with others with mutuality or love as the ideal controlling the 
process. 

The philosopher of religion lends a hand to an empirical 
religious ethic which seeks to discover God through ethical 
action. He clarifies crucial concepts and ideals, examines 
assumptions, and strives to heighten the unity of the cogni¬ 
tive equipment. The theologian also is indispensable, since 
he aids the philosopher not alone by introducing the support 
of tradition, wherever possible, but also by relating the fruits 
of his reflections to the fact of human need. The mystic con¬ 
tributes his offering of warm personal communion with God. 
But all must always remember, and ought to rejoice in the 
fact, that all such definitions, interpretations and visitations 
must return for validation to the actional sphere whence they 
sprang. Dean Inge felt the truth of this when he included 
among the closing sentences of his book this one: “The 
church, like a wise householder, must bring out of her treas¬ 
ure things new and old, as new things that are the legitimate 
interpretation of the original gospel for a state of society of 
which the first Christians never dreamed, and old things 
upon which the illuminating Spirit has passed with quicken¬ 
ing breath and revealing light.” 80 Yet whether these treas¬ 
ures are really treasures only time and experience, perhaps 
bitter, can tell. 

3. Commitment to God as the Enduring Incentive to Ethi¬ 
cal Action . 81 The supreme loyalty of the Christian must be 
to God rather than to any ideals, however precious. Only if 
this is so can he be an effective champion of ideals. For the 

80 Op. tit., p. 420. 

81 Cf. Gregory Vlastos, The Religious Way (New York: Association Press, 
1934), for a thorough discussion of commitment. 


226 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

spotlight of need does shift from one ideal to another in ac¬ 
cordance with human need. Freedom will be to one genera¬ 
tion what peace is to another and security to a third. Any 
given generation needs all three, but in the confused course 
of human events they usually have been fought for singly 
rather than collectively. Any empirical religious ethics 
worth the name will strive to orient individual and society 
alike to the pressing moral perplexities of the day. This, as 
we have been noting, requires paying strict attention to com¬ 
pelling ideals or regulative principles of action. Although 
religious faith comes to a burning focus in ethical action, 
it is never exhausted in it. For through ethical activity reli¬ 
gious faith seeks a fuller understanding of, a firmer grasp on, 
the value structure of the universe. Its beliefs regarding 
God, man and the good life, nurturing as they do the ideals 
which govern ethical action, come into immediate contact 
with the reality whose nature they are attempting to describe 
or interpret to men. 

Through ethical action, then, God speaks to man — ac¬ 
cepting, modifying or repudiating the ideals and their par¬ 
ent beliefs. The pragmatic keynote of prophetic religion, 
namely, that God speaks through his works, is fundamental 
to an empirical religious ethic. Obviously there is much of 
sheer faith in this view — a standing on the springboard of 
the partially known and partially experienced and plunging 
therefrom into what is regarded as the essential nature of re¬ 
ality. 

Thus the Christian religion injects the ideal of love into all 
moral issues, neither because we possess exhaustive evidence 
that it is the ultimate nature of reality nor because we can 
specify exactly what its implications are for concrete issues, 
but because it, better than any other, sums up the life and 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 227 

teachings of Jesus, the ethical thrust of the movement these 
evoked, and the experiences of value encountered by all who 
strive to follow them. Christian theology, implemented by a 
theory of value which recognizes God’s continuing activity as 
the ultimate fact, gathers into a coherent form our experi¬ 
ences of value and sees therein evidence of the love of God. 
Christian worship, utilizing this in its effort to convince man 
that without God he is lost and with God he is saved, leads 
man to the frontier of the known and bids him gather his 
energies and insights together if he would walk with God 
into the future. Christian ethics leads man into that future, 
supplying a sense of direction which enables him to feel his 
way through moral perplexities which otherwise would com¬ 
pletely baffle him. Commitment to God, the value structure 
of the universe, the supreme value whose nature illuminates, 
some radiantly others faintly, the values encountered in daily 
life — this supreme loyalty is open to the Christian. To the 
degree that it characterizes his life he seeks in the multiple 
and complex problems of his day that mutuality, that one¬ 
ness with his comrades and with God which when dis¬ 
covered can only be revered as holy. 

TENTATIVENESS AND CERTAINTY IN ETHICAL 
ACTION 

The polar relationship between tentativeness and certainty 
is aptly portrayed in the necessary yet provisional role of ideals 
or regulative principles in ethical action. The moral prob¬ 
lems with which ethical action concerns itself are the most 
complicated of all problems. The most assiduous investiga¬ 
tion may neglect major relevant factors. Usually the com¬ 
pulsion to act is so pressing that the deliberate analytical ap¬ 
proach is difficult. One thing however is clear: precious 


228 The Quest for Religious Certainty 

values are at stake and can be rescued only by decisions and 
actions based upon a perception of their plight and designed 
to release and further them. 

The metaphysics of ethical action can be described in this 
way: Lying in concentric circles about the concrete moral 
problem, and in approximately this relationship, are (i) al¬ 
ternate choices, (2) the ideal, (3) theological beliefs (beliefs 
about value and human nature), (4) attitude of devotion to 
God (consciousness of or reverence for value), (5) God (the 
value structure of the universe). 

The ideal brings our past thought about and experience of 
God to bear upon the problem at hand. In this sense, then, 
the ideal is definitely a priori and enters the crisis clothed with 
logical as well as psychological certainty. It is the direction¬ 
finder in moral confusion, but it does not thereby furnish all 
relevant facts about the perplexity, neither can it establish, 
prior to action under its guidance, its own relevance to the sit¬ 
uation. We will hold ideals tentatively, then, in proportion 
to the purity and strength of our devotion to God. In ethical 
action ideals that have survived the proving grounds of past 
experience are put on the highways, byways and detours of 
life, and our confidence in them awaits confirmation. When 
weaknesses show up, as they inevitably do, we can remedy 
them, may even fashion a new vehicle and try once more; and 
do it with the joy reserved for those who face outward on the 
frontiers of life. Our devotion to God need not waver at any 
moment in this process. Steadfast devotion brings beliefs and 
ideals into being as attempts to articulate our fragmentary 
experiences of God. When these beliefs and ideals are 
proved inadequate, devotion brings forth other and sounder 
ones based upon that experience. 


Tentativeness and Certainty in Conduct 229 

Ethical action, then, is the supreme moment in Christian 
experience, for in it we lay our beliefs, ideals and ideas on the 
altar of God, confident that he will accept, reject or modify 
them, and that we shall be enriched by a fuller knowledge 
of him. 
























INDEX 


Abelard, 14, 119 

Absolute: practical, 54 

Abundant life: and institutions, 148 f.; 

definition of, 170 
Adoration: and worship, 2 f. 

Alexander, S., 26, 45, 139, 140 n. 
Ames, E. S., 54 n. 

Amos, 192 n. 

Aquinas, Thomas, 13, 28, 35, 56, 119, 
133, 134, 138 
Archimedes, 75-76 
Aristarchus of Samos, 36 
Aristotle, n, 29, 35, 57, 61-62, 138 
Arminius, 147 
Arnold, Matthew, 15 
Aubrey, E. E., 18 n., 22 n., 27 n., 29 n. 
Augustine, 12, 13, 56, 119, 133, 147, 
163, 206 

Authority: in Christian ethics, 197 ff.; 

weakness of, 213 f. 

Ayres, C. E., 17 n. 

Babson, Roger, 6 

Bacon, Francis, 14, 15, 16, 56 

Bacon, Roger, 119 

Baptism: growth of symbol, 177 f. 

Barrett, Clifford, 217 

Barry, F. R., 22, 25, 222 n. 

Barth, Karl, 19, 20 n. 

Barthian, 5, 20, 147 
Bartlet, J. V., 179 

Belief: religious, Chap. VII passim; as 
approximation to reality, 108 ff.; as 
revelation of reality, 102 ff.; concep¬ 
tions of, 98 ff. 

Bennett, John, 192 n., 194 
Bergson, Henri, 16, 87, 96, 139 
Bernard of Clairvaux, 119 


Bernhardt, W. H., 100, 119 n. 
Boutroux, E., 16, 84, 87-88 
Bowne, Borden Parker, 139 
Brahe, Tycho, 36 
Bridgman, P. W., 17, 68 
Broad, C. D., 73, 76 
Brown, W. A., 37, 49, 51,105-8, inn. 
Brunner, Emil, 20 f., 211-13, 224 n. 
Buddhism, 135 
Burtt, Edwin A., 43, 54, 107 
Butler, Bishop, 55 

Cadman, W. H., 163 n. 

Calvin, 133, 147, 186, 206 
Case, S. J., 133 
Cave, Sydney, 28 

Celebration: and worship, 166 f.; in 
primitive religion, 166 f. 

Certainty: definition of, 32-33 ff.; logi¬ 
cal, 35 ff.; psychological, 33 ff.; of 
conclusion, 37 ff.; of method, 39 ff.; 
historical positions, 1 ff.; need of, 
2 ff.; possibility of, 32 
Christ: central Christian symbol, 176, 
183 f.; doctrines of, 149 ff. 

Clement, 179 

Cohen, Morris, 33, 42-44, 64 
Commitment: to God, 225 f. 

Concept: analysis of, 67 ff. 

Conscience: and mysticism, 208 f.; as 
authority in ethics, 205 ff. 
Contingency: Chap. VI passim; and 
knowledge, 79 ff.; and natural law, 
87 ff.; and scientific method, 83 ff.; 
as ignorance, 78 f.; definition of, 
57 f., 78; of past, 94; of future, 94 
Cooley, C. H., 140 n. 

Copernicus, 36 
131 


Index 


232 

Creativity: definition of, 140 
Credo quia absurdum, 118 
Criticism: and worship, 176 f. 

Darwin, Charles, 139 
Deduction, 63 ff. 

Deissmann, A., 196, 206 n. 

Descartes, 30, 31, 32 
Dewey, John, 8, 17 n., 26, 31-32 n., 42, 
70, 80-81,101,121 n., 129, 130, 139, 
143, 144, 199, 215, 217, 219 
Dinsmore, Charles, 33 
Dodd, C. H., 178 n. 

Duchesne, 178, 180 
Duffield, Kathrine, 172 n. 

Eckhart, Meister, 119 
Edwards, Jonathan, 115 
Emergent: Mead’s conception, 90 ff. 
Empirical: knowledge, 64 ff.; knowl¬ 
edge and probability, 71 ff.; reality, 
86 ff. 

Encyclical: Rerum "Novarum, 200 ff.; 

Quadragesimo Anno, 200 ff. 
Enjoyable situation: analysis of, 122 ff. 
Ethical action: and religious experience, 
189 f.; as supreme moment in Chris¬ 
tian experience, 224 f., 229; mean¬ 
ing of, 190 f.; metaphysics of, 216 ff. 
Ethics: authoritarian religious, 197 ff.; 
empirical religious, 214 ff.; functions 
of, 189 f. 

Eucharist: development of, 177 ff. 
Expectancy: and worship, 161 
Experienced enjoyment: and value the¬ 
ory, 122 

Faris, Ellsworth, 140 n. 

Farmer, R. H., 21 n., 22 n., 23, 58 
Ferdinand (Archduke), 78, 84 
Freud, Sigmund, 66, 103 ff. 

Gilkey, J. G., 51 

God: Creator, 134, 138 ff.; definition of, 


138 f.; as directional thrust, 139 f.; 
doctrine of, 133 ff.; grace of, 135 f., 
143 f.; Jesus’ conception of, 152 ff.; 
justice of, 135, 142 f.; love of, 136, 
145 f.; will of, 135, 142 

Goethe, 15 

Good: growth of, 143 ff.; Platonic con¬ 
ception of, 30 f. 

Gosse, Sir Edmund, 13 
Gregory, T. S., 224 n. 

Groping: and worship, 161 

Hamilton, Lord, 85 
Hamlet, 34 

Hartmann, Nicolai, 26, 40, 139, 157, 
218 ff., 223 
Haydon, A. E., 167 n. 

Heard, Gerald, 174 
Hegel, 86 
Heisenberg, 80 
Henson, H. H., 186 n. 

Hocking, W. E., 163 
Hoffding, 116, 175 
Holiness: of God, 193 f. 

Homrighausen, E. G., 21 n. 

Hume, David, 76-77 
Husslein, J. C., 200 n., 202 n. 
Hypothesis: scientific, 98 ff. 

Ideals: and values, 217 f.; as approxi¬ 
mations, 223 f.; function of, 216 ff.; 
idolatry of, 191; in empirical ethics, 
214 f.; relevance to moral problems, 
216 ff. 

Indeterminism: 78 f., 89, 95 f. 
Individuality, 59 f. 

Induction, 62 ff. 

Inge, W. R., 164 n., 197 n., 198 n., 220, 
225 

Inner light: as authority in ethics, 205 ff. 
Institution: and growth, 148 ff. 
Institutionalism: logic of, 148 
Instrumentalism, 68 ff. 

Integration: in philosophical theories, 

139 f- 

Intelligence: in nature, 130 


Index 


233 


Interim ethic, 194 
Inflationism, 39 

James, William, 70, 86, 95 
Jerome, 196 

Jesus Christ, 1, 2, 27, 41, 91, 128, 136, 
146, 149 - 55 , 176, 177 , 178, 180, 184, 
186, 187, 193-97, 206, 220, 221, 227 
John, Gospel of, 186, 194 n. 

John the Baptist, 177 
John of the Cross, St., 46 

Kant, 24, 206 
Kepler, 36 

Keynes, J. M., 73 m, 76, 77 m 
Knowledge: and scientific method, 
83 ff. 

Krutch, Joseph W., 17 

Lass well, Harold, 176 
Law: universal, 87 ff. 

Leitzmann, Hans, 178 n. 

Leo XIII (Pope), 202 ff. 

Lewis, C. I., 55 , 64 n., 73 n., 74 n., 76- 
77, 82, 121 

Liberalism: biblical, 204 f. 

Lincoln, 218 

Lippmann, Walter, 9, 18, 26, 129 n. 
Literalism: biblical, 203 f. 

Lost Soul: definition of, 165 
Love: as ideal for ethical action, 220 ff.; 
Dean Inge’s conception of, 220 f.; 
Reinhold Niebuhr’s conception of, 
221 f. 

Luke, 194 n., 196 
Luther, 119, 133, 136, M 7 

Machen, John Gresham, 204 
Macintosh, D. C., 101 
Mark, 194 n., 196 

Mathews, Shailer, 27, 108-10, 112,133, 
183 n. 

Matthew, Gospel of, 194, 196 n. 
McConnell, F. J., 51, 192 n., 214 
Mead, G. H., 69, 70, 80, 89-95, 96, 
140 n. 


Melanchthon, 119 

Micklem, N., 163 n., 175 n., 177 n., 
179 n., 180 
Minto, William, 10 
Modernism, 27 ff. 

Moehlman, 224 n. 

Montague, William P., 124 n. 

Morality: concern of, 189 
More, Sir Thomas, 189 
Morgan, C. Lloyd, 139 
Morris, C. W., 62, 64 n., 76, 140 n. 
Mysticism: and brotherhood move¬ 
ments, 206 f.; and ethics, 205 ff. 

Need: consciousness of, 171 f. 
Neo-Thomism, 28 ff. 

Newton, 35, 41, 58, 85 
Niebuhr, Reinhold, 148, 192 n., 193, 
194 n., 220, 221, 222, 223, 224 n. 

Objective perspective: Mead’s concep¬ 
tion, 81 f. 

Oman, John, 22, 23, 24, 25, 44, 66, 100, 
157, 222 n. 

Open-mindedness, 52 f., 96 f. 

Origen, 35, 56, 133 

Pasteur, 84-85 
Pauck, Wilhelm, 20, 49 
Paul, 4, 12, 41, 56, 90-92, 150, 179 , 
180, 184, 186, 196-97, 203 
Peirce, C. F., 16 
Penn, William, 208 
Perfection: notion of, 147 
Philosophy: quest for certainty, 11 ff. 
Pius XI (Pope), 200 
Plato, 11, 12, 30, 31, 32, 35, 46, 57, 
59-60, 138, 157, 199 
Pluralism, 86 

Polarity: meaning of, 59 f., 75, 95 f. 
Probability, Chap. VI passim, 55 
Proposition: existential, 63; tautological, 

63 

Quadragesimo Anno, 200 ff. 


Index 


234 

Reason: and theology, 20; and truth, 
11 ff. 

Religion: definition of, 119; essence of, 
175; high, 18 f. 

'Rerum Novarum, 200 ff. 

Revelation, 19 ff. 

Ritchie, A. D., 85 n. 

Robinson, B. W., 150 n., 193 

Salvation: doctrine of, 146 ff. 

Santayana, George, 40 
Schleiermacher, 175 
Schopenhauer, 86 
Schweitzer, Albert, 116, 194 
Science: as road to certainty, 14 ff., 
Chap. VII passim 

Scientific method: criticism of, 22 ff.; 
statement of, 42 ff., 54; and contin¬ 
gency, 82 ff. 

Scott, E. F., 195 

Scripture: as authority in ethics, 
203 ff. 

Secularism, 1 
Sellars, R. W., 139 
Sertillanges, A. D., 58 
Sharp, F. C., 217 

Sin: fundamental truth of, 173 ff.; 

meaning of, 147 ff.; original, 174 
Sinfulness: meaning of, 147 ff. 
Skepticism: and probability, 75 ff.; and 
tentativeness, 160 f. 

Smith, f. M. P., 192 
Smith, T. V., 205, 206 n. 

Socrates, 7, 63, 205 
Spaulding, E. G., 78, 89, 96 
Spengler, 4 
Sperry, Dean, 165 
Spinoza, 86, 88 
Stephens, Leslie, 195 
Subjectivism, 30 f., 67 
Supernatural, 22 ff. 

Syllogism, 72 f. 

Symbolism: meaning of, 175 f.; growth 
of religious symbols, 177 ff.; in wor¬ 
ship, 176 ff. 


Symbols: and change, 177 f., 183; 
growth of religious symbols, 177 ff.; 
liturgy as master symbol, 179 f. 

Temple, William, 44 

Tennant, F. R., 44 

Tentativeness: and theology, Chap. VIII 
passim; danger of, 50; factors under¬ 
lying, 55 ff.; fear of, 49; need for, 54; 
misconceptions of, 52 ff. 

Theology: and reason, 119; and value 
theory, 119 f., 136 f.; based on func¬ 
tional philosophy of value, 138 ff.; 
dialectical, 19 ff.; finality of, 120; hu¬ 
manity of, 118 f.; quest for certainty, 
12 ff. 

Theory of knowledge: of supernatural¬ 
ism, 22 

Thomas, George, 41 

Tillich, Paul, 79, 194 

Troeltsch, 206, 208 n., 209 n. 

Trueblood, D. E., 105 n. 

Truth: probable, 75 f. 

Tufts, James Hayden, 189 

Underhill, Evelyn, 161-65, 178, 179, 
181, 186, 207 

Universality, 59 f. 

Value: 25; area of certainty, 121 f.; 
consciousness of, 121 f., 156; func¬ 
tional philosophy of, 121 ff.; and na¬ 
ture, 126, 130 f.; nature of, 169 ff.; 
supreme, 138, 146; of tentativeness, 
156 f.; units of, 122 ff. 

Verification: meaning of, 70 f. 

Vitalism, 87 

Vlastos, Gregory, 153, 192 n. 

Vogt, Von Ogden, 166, 179 n. 

Voluntarism, 86 

Von Hiigel, F., 164 n. 

Wesley, John, 147 

Whitehead, A. N., 15 n., 16, 26, 45, 64, 
89, 104, 138, 139, 163,183 


Index 


Wieman, H. N., hi, 113, 11411., 116, 
121 n., 122 n., 131 n., 138 n., 141, 
144 

Wilson, Woodrow, 237 
Wordsworth, 15 

Worship: analysis of act of, 167 f.; and 
criticism, 176 f.; and culture, 164 £.; 


235 

and God, 163 f.; and philosophy of 
value, 168 f.; and symbolism, 175 ff.; 
as act of adoration, 162 ff.; as cele¬ 
bration, 166 f.; as quietism, 165 f.; 
essential genius of, 168; in religious 
living, 168 ff.; nature and aim of, 
162 ff. 




































































































* - 









































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































< • 




























































































































































- 













































































































* 



































































































